GOD TRANSLATED 

BY 

J. STANLEY DURKEE, M.A., Ph.D. 

PASTOR, SOUTH CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH 
BROCKTON, MASSACF j SETTS 




THE PILGRIM PRESS 
BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO 



JttG 



COPYRIGHT 1915 

BY J. STANLEY DURKEE 



THE PILGRIM PRESS 
BOSTON 



I rv 
DEC 17 1915 

©CU418095 



TO ALL THOSE HELPFUL SOULS OF EVERY PARISH, 

WHO, BY THEIR LOVE AND PRAYERS, HAVE 

INSPIRED MY MINISTRY AND AIDED 

IN MOLDING MY MESSAGE, 

I DEDICATE THIS 

BOOK 



INTRODUCTION 

It has been my custom each year to preach on 
Sunday mornings a series of sermons follow- 
ing some trunk line of thought. The sermons 
in this volume are chosen from the series of last 
year which were studies in the Gospel of John. 
They sought to find the simpler and more 
human interpretation of Jesus, while, at the 
same time, they gave all reverence to that other 
omething we call the Divine. 

Ever since the populace of Jerusalem cried, 
|n that day of triumph, "Who is he?" the 
vorld has been repeating the question. Today, 
^mid the wreck and ruin of our generation, we 
ask it with tenser meaning. The second sermon 
answers, — He is a translation of God. As 
Greek is translated into English, that the Eng- 
lish scholar may read and understand, so God 
is translated into human form, that human 
people may know and understand Him. Jesus 
Christ so perfectly translates God that we all 
may know the very thought and heart and love 
of God if we study the life and work of Jesus. 

From that standpoint have I thought and 
written. The sermons here printed deal with 
epochal hours in the life of our Lord and mark 
essential steps in the development of His Mes- 

[trii] 






Introduction 

sianic mission. Each sermon is meant to be a 
meditation at an important station along that 
via sacra of His blessed life. May the medita- 
tions by the way be sweet. May the terminus 
find us saying from a fuller heart, "My Lord 
and my God. ' ' 

J. Stanley Duekee. 

South Church Study, 
Brockton, Massachusetts, 
November 6, 1915. 



[viii] 



CONTENTS 













page 


Introi 


auction vii 


I. 


Who Is He? . 








1 


II. 


Life in Words . 








21 


III. 


Power from Doing . 








37 


IV. 


Fragrant Deeds 








57 


V. 


We Would See Jesus 








75 


VI. 


The Betrayer . 








95 


VII. 


On the Way Home . 








113 


VIII. 


A Gamble for a Coat 








129 


IX. 


Death Defeated 








149 


X. 


The Waiting Breakfast 








169 



[*] 



I 

WHO IS HE! 



' ' Who is He? ' '—Matt. 21 : 10. 



1 4* 



WHO IS HE? 

Eighteen hundred and eighty-seven years ago 
today, as we reckon time, a scene was taking 
place in an Eastern city, the significance of 
which is not yet fully appreciated. The central 
figure of that scene was, as a beautiful legend 
tells us, a young man thirty-three years of age, 
tall, fair, with high brow, deep blue eyes, of 
masterful appearance and wondrous voice. 
You could love him, or you could hate him, 
according as your thoughts run parallel to or 
cut across his standards and purposes. For 
three years people all over Galilee and Judea 
had been asking who he was, and what the 
meaning of his marvelous words and power. 
On this day he had come into Jerusalem accom- 
panied by a vast throng of singing and shout- 
ing people, and all the city was moved, crying, 
— "Who is he!" 

Let us get the strange scene before us ere we 
attempt to answer the question. It was a 
bright day in early spring of the year 29, when 
a great company of people set out from Bethany 
for Jerusalem. A national festival was open- 
ing in the city. It was the Feast of the Pass- 
over. We are told that possibly two or three 
[3] 



God Translated 

millions of pilgrims from all over the known 
world would assemble in Jerusalem for this 
Feast. No matter from what part of the world 
these pilgrims came they seemingly had all 
heard of Jesus of Galilee and were eager to see 
him and hear him speak. 

Just after leaving Bethany the young 
Prophet sent two of his disciples before him to 
a little village called Bethphage to secure a 
colt on which never man sat — the royal hint — 
to be used by him in riding into Jerusalem. 
The news spread quickly among the pilgrims of 
the village and to Jerusalem and the temple, 
that the Prophet was coming. It was a whisper 
that brought joy to the multitude, but hatred 
and almost terror to the Jewish rulers. The 
people streamed forth from the city to meet 
him. There had also been a great throng fol- 
lowing him up from Jericho and Bethany. The 
two streams of people ranged themselves be- 
fore him and behind. The multitude which 
came from the city preceded, bearing palm 
branches in their hands and strewed the road 
with them or spread their garments in the way. 
The company that followed after, shouted. 
The company that preceded answered back 
with a shout. The van called to the rear, and 
the rear to the van. The thunders of shout- 
ing rolled over the heads of Christ and his 
disciples in mighty volume. 

I now follow Edersheim's description: — 
"Gradually the long procession swept up and 

[4] 



Who Is He? 

over the ridge which first begins the descent 
of the Mount of Olives toward Jerusalem. At 
this point, the first view is caught of the south- 
eastern corner of the city. The temple and 
the more northern portions are hid by the slope 
of Olivet on the right. We would now see only 
a rough field, but at that time it rose, terrace 
on terrace, from the palace of the Maccabees 
to the magnificent gardens and palace of Herod. 
They had been greeting him, — ' Hosannah to the 
Son of David/ and the enthusiasm was con- 
tagious. We can imagine it all, and how fire 
would leap from heart to heart, — ' So he is the 
promised Son of David. The Messiah is at last 
here. The Kingdom is at hand.* The road 
descends with a slight declivity, and the glimpse 
of the city is withdrawn. A few moments and 
the path mounts again. It climbs a rugged as- 
cent. It reaches a ledge of smooth rock. In an 
instant the whole city bursts into view. Yon- 
der stands the temple tower, and there are the 
great temple courts. There is the magnificent 
city with its background of gardens and sub- 
urbs on the western plateau behind. Imme- 
diately before is the valley of the Kedron. As 
that vast throng caught the full view of the city 
of David, adorned as a bride to welcome her 
King, Davidic praise to David's greater Son 
echoed through the hills and valleys. We can 
fancy Olivet calling to Jerusalem across that 
valley in those familiar words of their familiar 
psalm, — 'Lift up your heads, ye gates; and 
[5] 



God Translated 

be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors : and the 
King of glory shall come in.' The queen city 
of Jerusalem shouts back to the Mount, — 'Who 
is this King of glory V The mountain top an- 
swers again, — 'The Lord, strong and mighty, 
the Lord, mighty in battle,' and again Olivet 
cries, — 'Lift up your heads, ye gates, even 
lift them up, ye everlasting doors: and the 
King of glory shall come in.' Once again the 
queen city calls back, 'Who is this King of 
glory V Then Olivet makes answer with a 
mighty shout, — 'The Lord of hosts, He is the 
King of glory. ' ' ' 

The throng that went before called to the 
throng that followed after,—" Ho sannah to the 
son of David. Blessed is he that cometh in 
the name of the Lord; Hosannah in the high- 
est. ' ' Everywhere the tramp of their feet, the 
waving of their palm branches, the shouts of 
their acclaim, brought men and women into the 
streets and upon the house-tops. The city was 
moved, and from mouth to mouth the eager 
question passed, — "Who is this? Who is 
this?" and the multitude answered, — "This is 
the Prophet of Nazareth of Galilee. ' ' 

"Who is this Jesus? Why should he 
The city move so mightily? 
A passing stranger, has he skill 
To move the multitude at will? 
Again the stirring notes reply, — 
Jesus of Nazareth passeth by." 

Long years have gone since that strange, 
stirring scene was enacted amid the old and 
[6] 



Who Is He? 

narrow streets of Jerusalem; since the hills 
and valleys of Judea echoed with those mighty 
shouts, — "Hosannah to the son of David.' ' 
Centuries have gone since the people in the 
streets, the priests in the temple, and the popu- 
lace everywhere were crying, — "Who is this? 
Who is this?" And still the cry is uttered to- 
day : uttered by those who wonder, uttered by 
those who are ignorant, uttered by those who 
would know, — "Who is this?" 

May we turn to get a few of the answers 
which are shouted back to us today. "Who is 
he?" 

Jewish Nationalism Answers, — He Is Our 
Messiah. 

How the nation looked and longed for their 
Messiah. Forgetting the great mission to 
which they had been called, they thought only 
of political freedom and conquest. Their Mes- 
siah would break the Roman yoke and permit 
them to establish a national government of 
their own. Their Messiah would lead them to 
conquer the whole world. They were to be ab- 
solute masters. Their culture, their ideals, 
their beliefs were exactly what all peoples 
needed. Their Messiah would make them 
glorious forever. 

Strange what foresight was theirs ! Strange, 
also, what blindness was theirs! Their Mes- 
siah would come, but he would not be exclu- 
[7] 



God Translated 

sively theirs. Through them all the nations of 
the earth should be blessed, yet not by their 
conquests, not by their armies. They did have 
a mission of culture and of ideals, but it must 
not be mixed with political nationalism. They 
mistook their mission of spiritualizing the 
thoughts and impulses of all nations for a mis- 
sion of political conquest. How they have 
suffered for that blunder! The Jews have 
wandered over the earth, homeless, destitute, 
strange, but their real mission has been, and 
is being, worked out. Through their Messiah 
the nations are being spiritualized and saved. 
The Jews will ere long accept Jesus Christ as 
Messiah and then the whole world will be saved, 
for the Jews' passion for religion is his first 
call from chaos and will be his last call in 
salvation. 

How parallel to this Jewish conception is 
that of the German Empire for the last thirty 
years ! I believe the German people were called 
of God to teach this world great lessons in fru- 
gality, scientific culture of body, mind and soul, 
scientific control of the vast resources of nature 
and of the marvelous powers of united effort to 
save. Like the Jews, the German nation has 
dimly appreciated this, — only dimly. Political 
ambition to rule the nations through their 
superior culture and methods of dealing with 
nature and man captured them. That political 
ambition ere long obsessed them. Their real 
mission became lost in their pride of superior- 

[8] 



Who Is He? 

ity. By the sword would they rule the world. 
They grasped the sword. They forgot the Mes- 
siah 's word to Peter, — "Put up again thy 
sword into its place for all they that take the 
sword shall perish with the sword.' ' The 
sword has turned in the hand of the German 
and is cutting out his national heart. Ger- 
many bleeds to death. Strange, wonderful, but 
solemn, is the experience that we now behold, 
for the German has reproduced the blunder of 
the Jew. But the real lessons which they were 
called to teach the world will be learned by the 
world. German methods will be used by native 
Africans ere long. Nothing shall be lost, save 
the pride and egotism that invited Germany's 
national suicide. 
"Who is this Jesus of Nazareth ?" 

Philosophy Answers, — He Is the Great Ideal. 

And he is. This world is ruled by ideals. 
You hard-headed business men and women who 
fancy you are doing your tasks in cold blood 
are as deceived as children with their toys. 
There is no such thing as cold blood in business 
methods. You may calmly decide and coolly 
execute, but your decision and execution is dic- 
tated by emotion. One of the greatest psychol- 
ogists of today said to me, — "All men are 
moved and controlled by their emotions." The 
men and women of vision are your pilots. Your 
engines drive forward the ship by cool, scien- 
[9] 



God Translated 

tific calculation in steel and steam, but your 
pilots stand on the bridge to bring you and 
your engines and your calculations to port in 
safety. 

Jesus Christ was the great idealist,— the 
greatest the world has ever known. He saw 
what was to be and led forward to that. There 
is a great passage of Scripture which causes 
me to marvel more and more, — "Who, for the 
joy that was set before him, endured the cross, 
despising shame.' ' Jesus Christ was an ideal- 
ist. He looked far beyond death to those limit- 
less eons of time when every knee should bow 
to him, and every tongue should praise him for 
his redemption. But he is infinitely more than 
an ideal. All that philosophy will say regard- 
ing him is true. All that the profoundest 
scholars of the ages have brought to lay at his 
feet is absolutely true. But when they have 
brought their choicest in philosophy, in litera- 
ture, in poetry, in music, in love, and laid them 
at his feet, — lo, they are only at his feet! He 
towers above them, the King of Kings, and the 
Lord of Lords, Jesus the Christ, the Saviour 
of the world. 

Never man spake like this man in practi- 
cal measures. Government, finance, poverty, 
riches, human relations and relations with the 
Divine, these were his constant themes, and 
from these words every organization and every 
leader in the forward movements of the race 
are gathering inspiration and vision. 

[10] 



Who Is He? 
"Who is this Jesus of Nazareth V 9 

Socinianism, or Modem Unitarianism An- 
swers, — He Is a Good Man. 

And he is. Look carefully at his character. 
Not a blemish can be found. Look carefully at 
his words. "Never man spake like this man." 
Look carefully at his deeds. They shine with a 
brightness that challenges the admiration of the 
greatest. Where can you find a flaw with this 
man, Jesus of Nazareth? He was a good 
man, — the world's noblest and the world's 
best. 

But, he was more than a good man. An in- 
finite something plays about his life. Was he 
a good man? So was Gamaliel, the great 
teacher of the Jews, but Gamaliel is not here 
this morning in this church. 

Was he a good man? So was Paul, the 
Apostle, who went up and down the world 
preaching and teaching that men might be 
saved. But Paul, the Apostle, is not here this 
morning in this church. 

Was he a good man? So were Socrates, and 
Plotinus, and Gladstone, and Moody good men, 
but they are not in this church this morning. 
Yet Jesus Christ is here. We have spoken to 
him. He has answered. By the shining of 
your eyes I know you have seen him, — you of 
the spiritual vision. By that look upon your 
faces I know you have felt him near. He is 
[ii] 



God Translated 

here this morning, and we lift up glad hands 
and gladder hearts as we cry, — 

"Warm, sweet, tender, even yet, 
A present help is he; 
And faith has still its Olivet, 
And love its Galilee. 

1 ' The healing of his seamless dress 
Is by our beds of pain, 
We touch him in life's throng and press 
And we are whole again. 

1 ' Through him the first fond prayers are said, 
Our lips of childhood framed: 
The last low whispers of our dead 
Are burdened with his name." 

"Who is this Jesus of Nazareth V 

Sociology Answers, — He Is a Great Re- 
former. 

And he is. There has never been anything 
in the universe of such power to destroy evil 
and liberate the good as his Gospel. Wherever 
that Gospel has been preached fetters have 
snapped, chains have broken, old prisons have 
shaken down, slavery of every sort has been 
destroyed. His Gospel has been the dynamite 
of God for the blowing up and blowing out and 
blowing to pieces of every form of oppression 
and sin. Wherever that dynamite has been 
really applied, there has always been a terrific 
upheaval and a new adjustment on a righteous 
basis. 

Why! when he came to his own land there 
were only about two hundred thousand real 

[12] 



Who Is He? 

Romans, and all the rest of the world — about 
sixty millions — were slaves to Eome. Two 
hundred thousand genuine Romans keeping in 
captivity sixty millions of people ! No wonder 
they passed sleepless nights in that city of the 
seven hills, for fear the slaves would rise in 
revolution. It was into that sobbing, crying, 
yearning mass of humanity that Jesus Christ 
began to pour his great ideals of self-respect 
and human love. You may change the word 
" salvation' ' to " self-respect,' ' if you please, 
for that is what it is. No man or woman who 
fails to respect himself or herself can under- 
stand what salvation is. Into that mass of 
people Jesus Christ began to pour his Gospel, 
and I want to tell you that in the fifth, and 
sixth, and seventh chapters of the Gospel as 
written by St. Matthew, there are the most 
inflammatory utterances that were ever given 
voice by human lips. 

His Gospel was dynamite, in such terrible 
social conditions. Look what it did to the 
Roman Empire! Look what it did to super- 
stition ! Look what it did to the forms which had 
clustered around it until they had hardened 
into cement walls of error! Look what that 
Gospel did in the time of Luther, who was an- 
other Odin with a mightier sledge hammer 
to beat down the walls of oppression 
and sin! Look what it has done in India, in 
Japan, in China, in Africa, in every isle of the 
sea! 

[13] 



God Translated 

Note what this great Eeformer has done for 
womanhood. May I take but one instance from 
India, from the report of 1891. We discover 
that amid two hundred and twenty-two millions 
of people, there were more than seven millions 
of girls married before they were fourteen 
years of age. When one remembers the hor- 
rors of child marriage, and all its frightful at- 
tendant evils and sufferings, one cries out even 
today. When one looks at the condition of 
womanhood in China, in Japan, in India, in 
Africa, before the Gospel of Jesus Christ was 
ever there preached, and contrasts that with 
the condition today where that Gospel has been 
preached, one is amazed, is speechless. Why, 
when I think of what the Gospel has done for 
womanhood, I wonder that every woman in the 
world, who has ever heard the story, does not 
leap to embrace that Gospel with all the power 
of her womanhood. Yet there are some who 
are so little appreciative of what that Gospel 
means that in this land they become heralds of 
destruction and pilots to hell rather than 
leaders to eternal glory. 

Note what that Gospel has done for child- 
hood. Fifty years ago, we are told, between 
sixty and seventy per cent, of all the female 
infants in Foochou, China, were either drowned 
at birth or otherwise destroyed. All over 
China were erected what were called baby 
towers. Parents who did not kill their children 
might leave them in an exposed place, or cast 

[14] 



Who Is He? 

them into the baby towers. Such towers still 
exist in China, though they are supposedly used 
only for the disposition of the bodies of dead 
babies. Who can estimate the hundreds on hun- 
dreds of thousands of babies thrown into the 
Ganges, and into other rivers, for their de- 
struction ! Childhood has been glorified by this 
great Reformer. 

How the burdens have been lifted from the 
backs of labor by this mighty Reformer ! Men 
today, half-baked in the thought of what it 
means, obsessed by their own greed, forget as 
they turn from the church to curse her, that 
the church has been the greatest saviour that 
the world has ever known in the liberation of 
labor from its slavery and the bringing in of 
new freedom. 

Yes, he is a great social Reformer. He cham- 
pioned the common people. He awakened them 
to their sufferings and their needs. He took the 
scales off their dull eyes. He called the light 
of hope to their faces. Everywhere the people 
flocked to him. A strange spirit of expectancy 
takes possession of those whose lives he pos- 
sesses. They begin to be strong in giving vent 
to their long pent-up yearnings. He is a revo- 
lutionist. The most inflammatory utterances 
that ever escaped the lips of mortals came 
leaping, flaming from the lips of Jesus Christ. 
Into that seething, voluptuous spirit of his day, 
Jesus poured his Gospel of self-respect and 
freedom. The Magnificat of Mary was the 

[15] 



God Translated 

Marseillaise of a new Kingdom. Those Beati- 
tudes were a new Bill of Eights. ''That Ser- 
mon on the Mount ranks high among the 
manifestoes of the world." 

The whole G-ospel is a direct challenge to 
oppression. Teach slaves the truths of the 
Nazarene, and slavery is doomed. No words 
are uttered or thoughts breathed that call the 
people into the kingdom of self-respect like the 
words of the Carpenter of Nazareth. When he 
married work and worship, a new day dawned. 
At the time of his coming, he who worked was 
despised. Slaves, and slaves only, must toil. 
Today, all this has been changed because of his 
evangel. The person who does not work is 
despised. The men and women who have mil- 
lions in money and yet refuse to render some 
useful service to the world are anathematized 
by all honest people. The Carpenter's evangel 
was the marriage of human labor and divine 
love. Jesus regarded religion as the inspira- 
tion of the world's work and never as an end 
of itself. Religion must be expressed in terms 
of a day's work. Every stable shall become a 
holy place ; every work bench an altar ; every 
counting room a place of prayer, and the true 
apostolic succession in Christian service is ever 
marked by the real preachers of the Word, and 
not by the mere operators of the work. 

He was a great social Reformer, but, oh! in- 
finitely more, for around him there gathers an 
eternal love and adoration that lifts him out of 

[16] 



Who Is He? 

the ranks of mere reformers, giving him his 
place upon his throne alone. 
"Who is this Jesus of Nazareth V 

Christianity Answers, — He Is the World's 
Saviour. 

And he is. Amid the two hundred and fifty- 
two names by which he is called in the Bible is 
one which declares him to be the Christ Al- 
mighty. He is the world's Saviour. He is the 
Christ, all powerful. 

As a friend, some days ago on the street, 
passed a group of young men, he heard one of 
foul mouth and sin-sick soul cry, — "Christ 
Almighty. ' ' The oath, for oath it was, brought 
to him that sickening sense that always steals 
over a lover of the Christ when his name is 
thus taken in vain. But as the friend passed 
by, slowly, like a dissolving picture on the 
screen, the blasphemy faded and the words 
came in blessing. Yes, after all, he is the 
Christ Almighty. 

Here is a young man. Nature endowed him 
with splendid health. He threw it away. 
Nature endowed him with splendid mental 
power. He stifled it and made it sodden 
and soggy. Nature gave him a voice of won- 
drous range. He broke it with his base habits. 
Now he lies sick and alone. He looks back over 
that pathway along which he has come, and says, 
"What a fool I have made of myself. Jesus 

[17] 



God Translated 

Christ, forgive me. I know I have wasted my 
years, and wasted my powers, and broken the 
heart of my mother, but I tell you, Jesus, I 
want to give you all there is left. Here it is, 
and I promise you that from this moment what- 
ever of health I may have, what voice shall be 
mine, what endowment for good service, that 
to its last ounce I will give to thee and to service 
in the world. ' ' He became better, grew strong, 
went out into the world a servant of Jesus 
Christ, and when he died, thousands of people 
went by his bier and dropped their tears upon 
his cold face and said, "Without him I never 
would have known the way into everlasting 
life." 

He is Christ Almighty, for he can take a 
young man absolutely broken and helpless in 
sin and make him a mighty evangel in the 
world: and there is no other power in the 
universe, known to God or man that can do 
that. 

Here is an old and aged saint. The years 
have slipped by so rapidly. The names he loved 
to hear have been carved for many years on the 
tomb. He is walking alone, leaning on that staff 
which comforts and supports him, whispering 
to himself, "Yea, though I walk through the 
valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no 
evil, for Thou art with me." Christ Almighty 
is His name ! 

Near the close of the Revolutionary War, so 
I have read or have been told, the victorious 

[18] 



Who Is He? 

armies marched in review through Philadelphia 
which was then the Capital of the country. On 
a bright morning, the troops came riding in. 
Harry Lee, the wonderful captain of cavalry, 
led on. The streets were lined with people, and 
every window was crowded with human faces 
and forms. They cheered. They sang. Tears 
fell. They threw their bouquets of flowers as 
the troops marched past. Lafayette was in the 
procession, and they cheered, and cried, and 
threw their flowers at the brave Frenchman. 
But, listen, — away down the street there is a 
continual roar, like the roar of the breakers on 
the shore. The word rapidly spreads, — "The 
Continentals are coming — the Continentals are 
coming.' ' Yes, the Continentals were coming, — 
those soldiers who had fought through the 
long years of struggle. The shouting swells 
to greater and greater proportion. Soon the 
Continentals are in sight, — but look! Yonder 
there rides in the midst, the man of calm 
face and glistening eye. Where before there 
had been shouting and laughter and clapping 
of hands, now tears ran down the faces of those 
who beheld: and instead of flowers that were 
thrown at the victors who had passed, we are 
told that the women tore from their necks their 
lockets and chains and threw them out to him, 
to the father of his country, to Washington 
who thus was riding to victory through the 
capital. 
Washington, the immortal, rode in triumph 

[19] 



God Translated 

into the heart of the nation which he had saved 
and had given to the world forever. 

But he who rode into Jerusalem in triumph 
that day, upon whose face was prophecy only 
and the tear stains where he had wept over 
Jerusalem; he who received the acclaim of 
the people as they shouted, — "Hosannah to the 
Son of David"; — he has ridden in triumph 
through every capital of every nation of the 
earth. He is riding today, and when the world 
shouts, "Who is he?" the answer comes back 
from hearts that have been redeemed, from 
lives that have been saved, from men and 
women who have been transformed by his love, 
from boys and girls who have been kept by his 
care, — "He is Jesus of Nazareth: he is the 
Christ Almighty." 

"A Saviour who died our salvation to win, 
A Saviour who knows how to keep us from sin; 
Yes, this is the Saviour, the Saviour we need, 
And he is a Saviour indeed. 

"Is he yours? Is he yours? 
Is this Saviour who loves you, yours?' ■ 



[20] 



II 

LIFE IN WORDS 



"And the word "became flesh, and dwelt among us." — John 
1 : 14. 



II 

LIFE IN WOBDS 

A word is a picture translated into sound. 
The listening ear catches the sound and trans- 
mits it to the brain. The listener, knowing the 
sound, recreates the picture, and thus one in- 
dividual may translate his thought by sound to 
another individual. For instance: — We stand 
on the hillside looking into a deep valley. The 
shadows have gathered. Darkness draws her 
curtains. The far call of the winding river 
and rapids is heard below, while above and 
aloft the great, silent stars are marching. Now 
and again, through the gathering gloom, the 
voice of the night bird sounds. All is peaceful 
and at rest. 

There is a wavering of the darkness on the 
eastern horizon. The night gives way. The 
light comes. The sun rises and looks down into 
the valley. Smoke from the chimneys is curl- 
ing upward. The low of the cattle and the voice 
of children are heard. All the valley life is 
stirring once more. 

Two pictures! Each of them put into one 
word, and with the speaking of that one word 
those who understand, instantly reproduce the 

[23] 



God Translated 

pictures. The dark valley, the stars marching, 
the river 's call, — Night! Light pouring in 
over the hillsides, smoke rising from the chim- 
neys, the low of the cattle, the voice of the 
children, — Morning ! The words are translated, 
and the pictures are ours. 

But the word must be understood if the sound 
shall convey any meaning. In describing that 
indescribable line between the receding of 
darkness and the beginning of light, I use the 
word "penumbra." To those who know its 
meaning, instantly the picture is created. To 
those who do not know, there is no picture. It 
is nothing but a sound. But I interpret the 
sound. I give it meaning. The penumbra is 
that indistinct line that marks the going of 
darkness and the coming of light. It is the 
penumbra of the morning. You answer, "Yes, 
I see that instantly, and when you use the word 
1 penumbra ' in the future, whether it be the 
penumbra of history, or the penumbra of in- 
telligence, or the penumbra of day, I can see 
the indistinctness that marks the going of one 
and the coming of the other. The word is 
translated and I understand. ' ' 

Now, a new word understood, translated, al- 
ways brings new knowledge, new life, new light. 
The more words we know in our own or other 
tongues, the larger our knowledge, the wider 
our vision, the more universal our thought may 
become. Said Helen Keller, telling of the com- 
ing of a word into her darkness and what it 

[24] 



Life in Words 

meant to her life, "Once I knew the depth 
where no hope was, and darkness lay on the 
face of all things. Then love came and set my 
soul free. Once I knew only darkness and still- 
ness. Now I know hope and joy. Once I 
fretted and beat myself against the wall that 
shut me in. Now I rejoice in the consciousness 
that I can think, act, and attain heaven. My 
life was without past or future. But a little 
word from the fingers of another fell into my 
hand that clutched at emptiness, and my heart 
leaped to the rapture of living. Night fled be- 
fore the day of thought, and love and joy and 
hope came up in a passion of obedience to 
knowledge. My early experience was thus a 
leap from bad to good. If I tried, I could not 
check the momentum of my first leap out of 
the dark: to move breast forward is a habit 
learned suddenly at that first moment of re- 
lease and rush into the light. With the first 
word I used intelligently, I learned to live, 
think, hope. Darkness cannot shut me in again. 
I have had a glimpse of the shore, and can now 
live by the hope of reaching it." Have you 
heard that wonderful woman tell the story of 
her endeavor to interpret the word "water" to 
Helen Keller, the little child? The deaf, dumb, 
and blind child, getting that one word, eagerly 
reached for the hand of the teacher that she 
might learn more. When Helen Keller stood 
on the platform at Radcliffe and received her 
diploma as a graduate of that college, she flung 

[25] 



God Translated 

in the face of every man and woman the chal- 
lenge never more to speak of the burden of 
receiving an education or the impossibility of 
climbing where they will, for if they have eyes 
to see and a brain that throbs aright, they may 
go onward to accomplish what they will. When 
boys and girls talk about the impossibility of 
getting an education or climbing where they 
want to climb, I like to bring back the story of 
Helen Keller, and say, "Look! Shame on you! 
Look again ! Now go and do ! ' ' 

Our text says, "The word became flesh.' ' 
The word was translated. John uses that old 
Greek word " logos.' ' It is a word that has 
changed its meaning four times in its history. 
You know words change their meanings. For 
instance, in I Corinthians, the thirteenth chap- 
ter, we say, in the old King James' version, 
"Charity suffereth long and is kind: charity 
envieth not : charity vaunt eth not itself, is not 
puffed up." When the King James' version 
was written, the word "charity" did not mean 
what the word "charity" means to us now. 
Today it means the gift of alms, the care for 
those in need. What the Greek word meant 
then, to us now means love, and so we say 
in the new version, "Love suffereth long 
and is kind: love envieth not: love vaunteth 
not itself, is not puffed up." Charity has 
changed its meaning entirely from those early 
days. And so with this word "logos." Away 
back in the beginning of the history of the 

[26] 



Life in Words 

word, it meant human reason: and then, after 
some centuries went by, it came to mean divine 
reason, Godlike reason: then, after some more 
centuries, it came to mean the Son of God, or 
a Son of the Gods : then, after some more cen- 
turies, it came to mean a second God, — and that 
was the meaning of the Greek word at the time 
John took up his pen to write this Gospel. So 
John says, — In the beginning was the " logos/ ' 
and the " logos,' ' or the God, was made mani- 
fest in flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld 
His glory. We mingled with him and learned 
the meaning of God through the word trans- 
lated into flesh and blood. 

I want to invite your attention this morning 
to three subjects compassed in the thought of 
the text, — namely, the Word from the begin- 
ning, the Word translated, the Word making 
this life glorious. 

The Word from the Beginning. 

Said John, "In the beginning." When was 
it ? How far away ? In the beginning ! Where 
was it? Who can find it? The picture has been 
drawn of a man seeking to answer the question. 
It is supposed that he sat dreaming one night 
on the hills, when an angel came to him and 
touched him on the shoulder, saying, "Come 
and have thy desires made known," and to- 
gether they were lifted into the air. Up those 
far stretching avenues of light they sped to 

[27] 



God Translated 

the great stellar systems which swing yonder 
in those vast spaces. When the man and the 
angel had come amid those rushing spheres 
unthinkable millions of miles away, and passed 
through them into the illimitable spaces beyond, 
the heart of the man began to melt within him, 
and he cried out, "End is there none to the 
Universe of God? " But the angel touched him 
again, strengthening him, and together they 
sped on until they came to the second system. 
Guided by the angel, they passed safely 
through, and on into that second illimitable 
space, and the man again cried, "End is there 
none to the Universe of God?" But the angel 
comforted him once more and on they sped, 
past the third, and past the fourth, and past the 
fifth system, and on and out into the distances 
which were so much greater than the dis- 
tances over which they had come that those 
distances behind shrank into insignificance, and 
the man cried out in his last despair, "End 
is there none to the Universe of God!" And 
the angel answered, "End is there none of 
the Universe of God. Lo, also, there is no 
beginning. ' ' 

1 ' In the beginning. ' ' Why, it was so far back 
of the creation of this little world of ours that, 
in comparison, this world was created yester- 
day and will be destroyed tomorrow! So in- 
finite are the reaches, that, in comparison, we 
were born the second that has passed and 
will die before the second to come! "Our 

[28] 



Life in Words 

little systems have their day. They have their 
day and cease to be." 

How often I repeat to myself that poem 
which was the loved favorite of Abraham 
Lincoln : — 

''Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud? 
Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud, 
A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave, 
He passes from life to his rest in the grave. 

' ' The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade, 
Be scattered around, and together be laid; 
And the young and the old and the low and the high, 
Shall moulder to dust, and together shall lie." 

"In the beginning." Come from the days 
when that unknown writer uttered those words 
in the opening of the Book of Genesis, down 
across a thousand years of history to the time 
when St. John takes up his pen to write, "In the 
beginning was the word. ' ' Genesis speaks noth- 
ing of the beginning of God. It speaks only 
of the world beginnings, — a manifestation of 
material things. John says, "In the beginning 
was the word." God from the eternities; God 
to the eternities ; from everlasting to everlast- 
ing Thou art God. The reach simply staggers 
our mind and tires the wings of our strongest 
imagination, and hurls us back to our own little 
lives where we can repeat to ourselves the 
formulas of our daily tasks and our daily work. 
All we can say is, "In the beginning was the 
Word," was God. 

[29] 



God Translated 

The Word Was Translated. 

I said a little while ago, if the word shall 
bring any meaning to one, it must be known 
and understood. If it is not known, it is noth- 
ing but sound. For instance, I use the phrase, 
"Yana yesu val, sal neau." What does it 
mean? To you who have heard it translated, 
there is beauty in it. To you who know it not, 
there is nothing: but sound. I never hear the 
words but the tears seek to start from my 
eyes. It is the phrase of a song from the black 
Bassa tribe of the East coast of Africa. I can 
see them now trekking through the long grass 
and the jungles and the forests of Africa with 
their packs on their shoulders. The order is 
given; the night has come, and on the other 
side of the river they will encamp. Now I see 
them, those black faced men of the far interior, 
as they gather in the twilight and sing. I hear 
their voices coming through the forests, "Yana 
yesu val, sal neau. ' ' Listen ! 



' Come to Jesus, come to Jesus, 
Come to Jesus just now; 
Just now come to Jesus, 
Come to Jesus, just now." 



That is what it means. Yana yesu, come to 
Jesus : sal neau, just now. "Why, the moment 
I have translated the phrase, it brings a mean- 
ing to you and you understand it perfectly be- 
cause you know it in your mother tongue and 

[30] 



Life in Words 

in your mother impulses. "Come to Jesus,' ' 
sings the African, and the common tune brings 
the meaning and language home. 

Says our text, "The word was made flesh.' ' 
That is, God was made understandable. God, 
the metaphysical, is very far away. We can- 
not get to Him. We cannot understand Him. 
There is no way for us to know Him. Who, by 
searching, can find God? Not one. How shall 
we get God near? Why, God must be trans- 
lated, as a word must be translated. Jesus 
Christ came as the translation of God. I won- 
der if I can make that very plain. Here is a 
page of Greek, and here the Greek is translated 
into your mother tongue. The Greek is un- 
known to you, we will say. Hence, the lines are 
but scratches. You cannot understand; but, 
word for word, the Greek is translated into the 
language you can read, and you get the mes- 
sage of the Greek word for word. The word is 
translated. 

Jesus Christ is God translated. That is all ! 
Jesus Christ is God translated. You cannot 
find God or understand Him. The human mind 
is always staggering over the thought of God's 
immensity in building these universes, sus- 
pending them in nothing and so finely balanced 
that they hang by their own weight. But Jesus 
Christ translates God. When I look at Jesus 
Christ, the translation, then I understand God 
and am able to get hold of the fact of God. 

Now, everything that Jesus ever said, or did, 

[31] 



God Translated 

you can put into one word "father." This was 
a new note when the Christ came. Father! 
Oh, is that what you mean when you talk of 
God ! Why, I had a father. I can see him now 
with that long white beard and silken white 
hair and kindly eyes that laughed in the cor- 
ners. I can hear his prayers now. I can feel 
the grip of his hand now as he sent me out to 
the world to do a man's job. Is that what you 
mean when you are talking about God f Is He 
Father? Yes,— "like as a father." But the 
human father makes mistakes, not purposely, 
and he sins, not willingly, and he is not perfect. 
My Heavenly Father never makes mistakes and 
never sins and never does the things that are 
wrong, and is absolutely perfect. Is that what 
you mean when you talk about God, that He is 
like my father, only multiplied to the nth. de- 
gree in perfectness! Why, then I can reach 
up and say, "My Father, my Father, God, 
my Father." Like as my human, and loved, 
and revered father, — that is God. That is the 
word Jesus translates. That is what John 
meant when he wrote, "the word was made 
flesh. " God walks around in the interpreted 
life of Jesus Christ. When I look at Christ I 
can see God translated into the language I 
understand. He is human as I am human, 
tempted as I am tempted, yet He is God trans- 
lated. Now, I can understand God, because I 
can read Him in Jesus Christ. 

[32] 



Life in Words 
The Word Alive Making Life Glorious. 

If God was translated into human flesh and 
blood so that we could understand Him, then 
two things of necessity follow, namely, — this 
life is worth living, and we are immortal even 
while we are here. This life is worth living, 
isn't it? God pity you if you have so much 
meanness of soul and vileness of nature and 
twist of character that you ever say, "this life 
is not worth living.' ' I should be ashamed to 
meet you by day or by night. Oh, the joy 
that comes to the heart that really feels and 
knows and lives! Why, what joy in tears! 
What joy in suffering! What joy in sadness! 
What joy in defeat! What joy in the inspira- 
tion of living in a world like this! What joy 
in living ! What joy in working ! It is infinitely 
worth living. Jesus Christ came into it that 
he might live in it with us. He tabernacled 
among us. Tabernacle is the old word for tent. 
He pitched his tent beside ours, that we might 
be neighbors and friends. He pitched his tent 
beside ours that he might live with us. Life 
is Heaven to those who use it rightly, and all 
life's sorrows, crosses, and losses are rungs of 
the ladder by which we mount to newer heavens. 
Life is Hell to those who use it wrongly, and 
all earth's sins and sufferings become the mill- 
stones that sink them to deeper despair. Jesus 
came with all the knowledge of the infinite. He 
lived with all the knowledge of the infinite. He 

[33] 



God Translated 

went back into all the knowledge of the infinite. 
He broke every bar, he opened every gate, he 
tore aside every obstruction, he led the way 
from this world straight home to that other. 

God lives. God loves. God is our Father. 
Jesus revealed it. God matches His life 
against mine, to make my life the best possible. 
Then I am immortal. Then I shall live and 
love forever. Said Jesus, "I am the resurrec- 
tion and the life : he that belie veth on me, 
though he die, yet shall he live : and whosoever 
liveth and believeth on me shall never die. ,, 
God in the flesh means the extension of life 
forever. We could find no beginning ; we shall 
find no ending. Life goes out and goes on for- 
ever. I can never die; you can never die. 
They can never put us in the ground. I shall 
go away and leave this clay body to the ground, 
but I who live within it now shall go up to live 
forever, because God lives forever. 

The Christ I invite you to, Sabbath by Sab- 
bath, is the Christ who seeks to put his strength 
into your lives. The call of Jesus Christ today 
is that we become like him and measure our 
lives up to his standard. It is not an indefinite 
call. It is a plea from the heart of the Father, 
God, to the heart of His children. When I 
speak of God, as Father, I go back to childhood 
and climb up through the years. I recall my 
earthly father's love and care and protection. 
I remember how my heart turned to him for 
guidance and wisdom. I think of him the day 

[34] 



Life in Words 

he went home to glory. Where I leave the 
thought of my earthly father I take up the 
thought of my Heavenly Father. I can see His 
face. I can hear His voice. I cry, ' * Father, I 
am your child. You give your life to me. I 
give my life to you. Together we shall live and 
love forever.' ' 

It is said that a mechanic in Colorado has 
invented a phonographic safe lock which can 
be opened only by a spoken word of him who 
closes the safe. Instead of a knob on the door, 
the safe has the mouthpiece of a telephone. A 
delicate needle extends from the diaphragm of 
the mouthpiece to a groove in a sound recorder 
on the phonographic cylinder within the lock. 
The word on which the safe is locked is thus 
recorded on the cylinder in the form impressed 
on it by him who locks it. The moment, there- 
fore, he who made the record repeats the word 
in the magical tone which characterizes that in- 
dividual voice, the safe will fly open. No other 
can command it. 

The record and so the lock, like the door to 
the inmost chamber of the human soul, will 
respond only to the voice of one master. The 
word was translated. Jesus is the voice of God. 
There is only one word that can really open 
your heart and mine, and that is the word 
" Jesus.' ' When that word is spoken, and 
spoken with all the accent that records the 
deepest impressions of the human heart, in- 

[35] 



God Translated 

stantly the door opens and the heart is re- 
vealed. My friend, will you let me speak the 
word! Oh, that my voice might have the 
carrying power; that I could send into your 
heart today the word "Jesus," so that your 
barred and locked heart might open and the 
Christ might come in, and joy and gladness 
now and ever be yours, welling up like a spring 
into everlasting life. 



[36] 



Ill 

POWER FROM DOING 



' ' When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know 
that I am He, and that I do nothing of myself." — John 8: 28. 



Ill 

POWER FEOM DOING 

The Sandwich Islanders believe that the 
valor and strength of the enemy slain passes 
into the life of the one who slays. Therefore, 
the proud warrior would choose to kill the 
strongest and most valorous of his enemies, 
that he might gain their greater strength for 
other battles. One can readily see, with such 
a belief, how fierce the battles would be, how 
terrific the onslaught, and how proud the war- 
rior when his enemy at last lies dead at his 
feet, and he feels the valor of the fallen foe 
flowing, like tides, into his own body. 

There is a great, deep truth underlying this 
old belief. The error of the Sandwich Islander 
is, of course, in thinking that the actual valor 
and strength of the enemy can come into his 
own life. That cannot be. But the fact of the 
belief is that when one has defeated a foe, one 
is stronger because of his conflict, — stronger 
in courage and self-mastery. The truth is that 
the more the courage and valor challenged for 
any conflict, the greater will be the supply of 
courage and valor in the individual. The more 
crises that come to one, calling for the finest 
judgment, the quickest response, the keen- 

[39] 



God Translated 

est insight, the more will one grow in fine 
judgment and prompt action and large vision. 

It is true, also, if we turn to the thought of 
our temptations. We gain the strength of the 
temptation we resist. The greater the tempta- 
tion and the more we resist it, the stronger we 
have grown in our power of resistance. The 
line is very narrow over which we might step 
to declare with the Sandwich Islander that the 
actual strength of the temptation itself had 
gone over into our lives to make us strong. 

The law of nature seems everywhere to be, — 
Do the thing and you have the power. They 
who do not the thing have not the power. I 
master a book : I make its thoughts mine, then 
its life blood flows into me, and I become strong 
in proportion to the greatness and strength of 
the book I have mastered. I may forget every 
word of the book, but the power gained never 
leaves me. "When you have climbed the moun- 
tain peak and stand at last on the summit, the 
power of the climb has entered into your being, 
and though you live in the valley for years to 
come, yet the actual power of the climb is yours, 
and you shall use it where you will. Do the 
thing and you gain the power. When you have 
travelled far, the world at large becomes 
familiar to you, and its life impulses are your 
life impulses: hence, you become a world 
thinker, a world feeler, a world sympathizer. 
When you have done a good deed and gotten 
your reward in the doing, then you understand 

[40] 



Power from Doing 

the blessing of doing and the words of Jesus 
who said, — It is more blessed to do, than to 
have one do for you. 

The text of the morning says, " When ye have 
lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know 
that I am He. ' ' It is the same law, — the natu- 
ral law in the spiritual world. When you have 
done a thing in the spiritual world, as in the 
natural world, then the power comes to you 
and the ability to do. When you have lifted 
up the Son of man, you have gained spiritual 
muscle in the doing. I repeat, — when you have 
climbed the mountain peak, you have gained 
strength in the actual climbing, and now the 
strength is yours. When you have mastered 
the poem and put it away, word for word, in 
your mental life until by day or night you may 
repeat it as your own, then you have gained 
the power, the life blood, of the poem. When 
you have won a friend, or have found one, for 

"We do not make our friends; we find them only 
Where they have waited for us weary years/ ' — 

when you have found a friend, then the strength 
of that friendship coming into your life makes 
you strong. 

0, the glory of human friendship! I in- 
stantly am suspicious of those people who go 
their way through life without genuine and 
hearty friends. May I quote you a stanza or 
two from that justly celebrated poem of Alfred 
Noyes, — 

[41] 



God Translated 

'What will you say when the world is dying? 
What, when the last wild midnight falls 
Dark, too dark for the bat to be flying 
Round the ruins of old St. Paul's? 
What will be last of the lights to perish? 
What but the little red ring we knew, 
Lighting the hands and the hearts that cherish 
A fire, a fire, and a friend or two ! 

'Up now, answer me, tell me true! 
What will be last of the stars to perish? 
The fire that lighteth a friend or twol 

'Up now, answer me, on your mettle, 
Wisest man of the Mermaid Inn, 
Soberest man on the old black settle, 
Out with the truth! It was never a sin. 
Well, if God saved me alone of the seven, 
Telling me you must be damned, or you, 
This, I would say, This is hell, not heaven! 
Give me the fire and a friend or two. 

'Steel was never so ringing true: 
God, we would say, This is hell, not heaven! 
Give us the fire, and a friend or two ! ' ' 



When you have found a friend, and only then, 
will there come into your life the magnificent 
strength of human friendship. " When ye have 
lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know," 
— and only then, — who he is or what power he 
has in human life. So I say to you of the doubt- 
ing, the hesitating, the unbelieving and the 
fearful heart, you never can know Jesus Christ 
more than you can know a friend, or a book, 
until you have enthroned him in your hearts 
and lives. When once he is there, then you will 
begin to understand what the life of Jesus 
Christ means in the individual heart, or in the 
heart of the world. 

[42] 



Power from Doing 

I cannot tell you my love for a rose. But 
when you have stayed by a rose long enough 
to sense its divinity, gets its aroma, catch its 
beauty that is not of the earth beauty, and 
found every power of your being tingle at the 
suggestion of the rose, then you will begin 
to understand something of my love for a 
rose. 

I cannot tell you my love for Jesus Christ. 
But when you have stayed by him long enough 
to get the wonder of his presence, the sublimity 
of his friendship, the strange, sweet sense of 
his power that comes like waves from the in- 
finite ocean, along whose rim no foot has ever 
trod ; when you have kneeled alone, whether it 
be in the storm or the calm, with the face 
bathed in tears or in laughter ; when you have 
found that human Christ as yours and yours 
alone, — then you may begin to understand 
something of my love for Jesus Christ, personal 
Friend, Saviour, and Lover. "When ye have 
lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know 
that I am He." 

We Gain Power by Doing Powerful Things. 

We walk by faith, not by sight. Nothing ever 
walks by sight. Could any of us have looked 
forward from twenty-five years ago we would 
have said that the places we occupy today, with 
all their environment, and their limitations, 
and their possibilities, would not be open to us. 

[43] 



God Translated 

We would have called such a vision only a 
dream. But here we are today, and every step 
has been taken by faith. We are what we are 
today by faith. It is the old doctrine enunci- 
ated by Paul at the beginning of his ministry, 
— we walk by faith, not by sight. 

Moses, called to his great life 's work, doubted, 
hesitated, was appalled at the enormity of the 
responsibility placed upon him. By fiercest 
fighting and struggle, he overcame his doubts. 
We are told in that beautiful and dramatic 
story how he debated the whole question 
with God, as a thousand men and a thousand 
more of our generation have debated their 
question of a life's work with God, face to face. 
When the final decision was reached, Moses 
went forward, through pestilence and disease, 
and death, through rivers of blood, and salt 
seas that flowed, and miles and leagues of miles 
of hot desert sands ; on and on for forty years, 
until he climbed to Pisga's peak and wrote his 
name among the immortals, and went on into 
that other life. He never dreamed at the 
beginning what would challenge him before 
the close of life. He walked by faith, and he 
won. 

Saul of Tarsus begins that wonderful career, 
which has not yet closed, with this question, 
/'What wilt Thou have me to do!" Then, he 
went out to find his answer. "Thrice was I 
beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I 
suffered shipwreck, a night and a day have 

[44] 



Power from Doing 

I been in the deep," in perils often by robbers, 
among false brethren, and among the churches. 
But on and on he goes, twenty years and more, 
until at last, at the close of his life, he cries, 
"I know whom I have believed. I am ready 
now to be offered, and the time of my de- 
parture is at hand. I have fought the 
good fight, I have finished the course, I 
have kept the faith." But all the way to 
his crowning hour he walked by faith and not 
by sight. 

Any men, or women, who have dared for 
God have always, like Abraham of old, gone 
out by faith, not knowing whither they went; 
but, like Abraham, have come to the land of 
God, and have set up their altars on which 
burned the sacrificial fires which will never die 
out. 

In the seventh chapter of John, the seven- 
teenth verse, there is a great statement of the 
Christ, — ' ' If any man willeth to do His will, he 
shall know." Some of you people have held 
back for years. Take that into your souls, — 
"If any man willeth to do His will, he shall 
know." It is the only way possible to know. 
You will never be convinced to the hour when 
you lie down to die, unless you are willing to 
take the child 's step. Vv 7 hen you will to do His 
will, then shall you know. 

If you will establish a home and have life 
with all its sweetness and beauty, then you will 
begin to understand something of what you 

[45] 



God Translated 

have been losing in these bachelor years, and 
you will be able to say to yourself, — 

1 ' Mid pleasures and palaces, though we may roam, 
Be it ever so humble, there 's no place like home. ' ' 

If any willeth to commit to memory "In 
Memoriam ' ' — I will never forget the day when 
my old Professor, Dr. Borden P. Bowne, said, 
"I never dreamed such life was there. I ought 
to have known, for the philosophy is true. I 
never consciously learned the poem, but I awoke 
one morning to find that I knew it from begin- 
ning to end." If anyone willeth to learn "In 
Memoriam ' ' he shall begin to have the life that 
Tennyson was reaching after. He cannot get 
it in any other way. 

I read in the paper a few evenings ago an 
extract by one of Boston's greatest business 
men. One paragraph particularly arrested my 
attention. I read it over and over. Here it 
is : — "A man creates a business and he creates 
it with sweat and toil and trouble, by thinking 
day and night, by meeting obstacles, and being 
beaten and refusing to be beaten. He comes 
out at last with the help of the men who have 
come to believe in the business, with a success- 
ful business. Now what follows? Almost 
surely, he believes that his methods, which have 
triumphed, are right. Unless he is super- 
human he will try to continue just those 
methods, and if he has any ideals he will try to 
impose them on all the people he can make ac- 

[46] 



Power from Doing 

cept them. Then what happens? Have you 
ever thought why businesses that dominated 
the retail trade in cities no longer dominate it, 
— either die of dry rot or grow so slowly that 
the new businesses outclass them and pass 
them by and leave them apparently standing 
still I" 

To most people there must come a time when 
they are jolted out of the accustomed things 
and thrown sprawling into new surroundings. 
Not many of us 

* ' Welcome each rebuff that turns earth 's smoothness rough, 
Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand, but go. ,; 

Most of us have to be tossed overboard before 
we really swim. That is the kindest thing the 
fates can do for us, else we grow stagnant with 
present living and working, because no new ob- 
stacles challenge us, no new powers are de- 
manded from us to meet the challenges. Ah, 
we need the battling and the struggling to bring 
forth the best and the finest that is in us. If 
all this is true in business, it is true in religion. 
If it is true in religion, it is true in politics ; it 
is true in home government. The greatest 
blessings that come to us are those shocks which 
throw us out where new powers are demanded ; 
where it is, do something new; where abilities 
are challenged that have never been challenged 
before. In meeting these conditions we dis- 
cover that we are equal to the emergency 
because the new things develop new powers. 

[47] 



God Translated 

The story is told of an old German baron, 
who, having grown tired of the gay and idle 
life of the Court, asked leave of his king to 
withdraw from it. He built for himself a fort 
on a rugged rock, beneath which rolled the 
Rhine. There he dwelt alone. He hung wires 
from one wing of the fort to the other, making 
an .ZEolian harp on which the winds might play 
to solace him. Many days and nights had 
passed, the winds had come and gone, yet never 
had there been music from that harp, and the 
baron interpreted the silence as God's dis- 
pleasure. One evening the sky was filled with 
wild, hurrying clouds. The sun fought fiercely 
but was overcome and sank away in gloom. 
Night fell. A storm broke forth which shook 
the earth. The baron walked restlessly through 
his rooms in loneliness and disquiet. At length, 
he went out into the night and stood upon the 
precipices, hearing the Ehine below and the 
echo of the thunders on the far hills across. 
Then he stopped short and listened intently, for 
behold, the air was full of music. His iEoIian 
harp was singing with joy and passion, high 
above the wildness of the storm. Then the 
baron knew that those wires which were too 
thick to give out music at the call of common 
days had found their voice in a night of stress 
and storm. It needed the assault of nature to 
awake the slumbering song. 

All things are for our success. All things 
shall work together for good to those who love 

[48] 



Power from Doing 

God and to those who seek to follow His com- 
mand. Strain is a word which means stress; 
but it is likewise a word which means song. 
Only on the strained cord, or wire, does music 
sleep waiting to be awakened by a commanding 
touch. 

What Christ Took on Himself. 

All great problems have been solved by in- 
dividuals and worked out by groups. An indi- 
vidual solved the problem of the Atlantic 
Cable. An individual toiled over and sacrificed 
for the telegraph. An individual conceived the 
idea of the telephone. An individual gave us 
the wireless, and the picture will never fade 
from the generations of that man sitting, one 
wild day, amidst the storms of Newfoundland, 
listening intently that he might catch some faint 
impulse of a signal returned to him from the 
far coasts of England. An individual made 
possible the Brooklyn Bridge, the Hudson 
Tube, the Simplon Tunnel. An individual will 
give us the key to the solution of our social 
problems. An individual will write the music 
to which the feet of ages will march. An in- 
dividual will catch that new vision of God, 
while the group will build the stairway by 
which the nation shall mount to the newer 
heavens. An individual has always caught the 
vision, and by the aid of the group, has worked 
it out for the success and the glory of man. 

[49] 



God Translated 

Go over the lists in the moral world, and you 
will find the same thing to be true. David 
Livingstone yearns for unknown Africa, and 
taking his wife and children into its trackless 
jungles and long yellow grasses, he faces that 
unknown interior. But he opens up the roads 
along which come the traffic of the nations and 
the missionaries which train the wild tribes into 
peace loving Christian men and women. 

Take the history of that wonderful man of 
England, Dr. Barnardo. At midnight, in the 
fog and mist of London's wharves along the 
river front, the young man stopped and listened 
to the astounding words spoken by a boy of 
eight or ten. He had been teaching in one of 
the clubs and had asked this boy where he lived. 
The boy offered to show him. On the way he 
pointed out barrels, and boxes, holes in the 
wall, and burrows under buildings, in all of 
which boys were sleeping. In one such place, 
he found seven boys, the youngest nine and the 
oldest sixteen, dressed in rags not enough to 
keep them warm. " Shall I wake 'em up, or 
shall I take youse to another lay? There is lots 
and lots more." No sleep was possible for 
young Barnardo that night. When morning 
came, he had determined his life's work. He 
had a glimpse of the awful suffering and degra- 
dation of the boys of London, and in a great 
passion he took upon himself the hunger, and 
sin, and suffering of those homeless boys. 
Thus was his wonderful work built up. All 

[50] 



Power from Doing 

over the world went those boys, establishing for 
themselves homes, building character and busi- 
ness, gaining wealth and position. When Dr. 
Barnardo died, men of affairs and men who 
loved them, men leading their own sons by the 
hand, men strong in body and soul, men suc- 
cessful as the world counts success, men owning 
their own homes and their farms, men working 
in honorable trades and professions, stood with 
bowed heads and tear-filled eyes as they remem- 
bered how in their own poverty and neglect and 
sin, he had come and saved them for the life 
which now they lived. 

Take it in the history of Helen Keller. In 
a beautiful Southern garden, amidst lovely 
roses, was a young woman and a little child. 
In a wild rage the child had thrown herself on 
the soft grass and kicked and screamed. She 
had tried to make herself understood and had 
failed. The child was blind, and deaf, and 
dumb. The young woman's face grew strong 
and tender. There and then she determined 
that she would break those bars, she would un- 
shutter those windows and bring light, and life, 
and joy into that little child's soul. I have 
heard her tell the story, — a wonderful story. 
When Helen Keller stood on the platform to 
receive her diploma from her Alma Mater and 
go out into the world as one of the educated 
and beautiful young women, it was but the 
answer to the voice that came to that woman 
as she looked at the little child in the garden 

[51] 



God Translated 

and determined that life should unlock the 
blindness and darkness there. Now Miss 
Keller herself has gone out into the world to 
take the woes of all the blind children, and all 
the deaf children, and all the dumb children 
upon her own soul, and never again will it be 
possible for little children, like to herself as a 
child, to go without some one who can interpret 
to them what the world around them means. 

But what did Jesus Christ take on Himself? 
All the woes of Africa, and all the homelessness 
of the little boys in London, and in New York, 
and in Boston, and in every city of the globe, 
and all the woes of the blind, the deaf, and the 
dumb, and all the woes and sins of the whole 
wide world, that he might bring to all life and 
light and salvation. 0, what a burden! O, 
what a woe ! 0, what a load ! No wonder, at 
thirty-three, his heart broke, while the temple 
veil was torn and the rocks were rent asunder. 
No wonder he cried out in the agony of his 
spirit, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani!"! No 
wonder the heavens grew dark! No wonder 
nature shuddered ! But, the glory of the One 
who could take upon himself such woe and suf- 
fering, that he might lead the world out of 
darkness into light and life! No wonder the 
world worships him today! No wonder men 
and women fall passionately in love with him ! 
No wonder there is none other name under 
Heaven given among men whereby we can be 
saved! Only the matchless burden bearing of 

[52] 



Power from Doing 

the matchless Christ gives us our matchless 
Saviour and Eedeemer. Turning the point of 
those great words of Matthew Arnold, we 

say,— 

' ' He took the suffering human race, 
He read each wound, each weakness clear, 
He struck His finger on the place, 
And said, — Thou ailest here and here.'* 

No wonder we can cry with Isaiah, "He was 
wounded for our transgressions; He was 
bruised for our iniquities ; the chastisement of 
our peace was upon him, and with his stripes 
we are are healed"! No wonder our eyes 
moisten as we repeat with John, 1 1 God so loved 
the world that He gave His only begotten Son 
that whosoever believeth on him should not 
perish but have everlasting life"! Poetry, 
music, painting, sculpture, art in every form 
and in every language unite in all ages to lay 
at his feet sheaves of gladness and crown him 
with laurels of victory. 

The Knowledge that Satisfies. 

Earth knowledge is continually changing. 
Our scientific interpretations are ever being re- 
stated. We are always outgrowing the old and 
entering into the new, as children are always 
outgrowing their clothes. There comes a time 
when men and women have received their 
physical growth. I have heard of some people 
who have their clothes cut year after year from 

[53] 



Go d Translated 

the same pattern! If most people are more 
careful of their dress than that, how many are 
not more careful of their mental development. 
How many turn back to say, ' ' 'Twas good 
enough for my father, and it is good enough for 
me." A few days since I was reading over a 
lecture I gave at a college commencement seven 
years ago. I used words which today are out- 
of-date scientifically. We are continually out- 
growing old terms, if we are growing. We are 
continually outgrowing our old beliefs and our 
old loves, if we are growing. 

1 ' Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, 
As the swift seasons roll: 
Leave thy low-vaulted past, 
Let each new temple, nobler than the last, 
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast 
Till thou at length art free, 
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea. " 

Some of life's experiences satisfy us, and 
they are sources of satisfaction forever. The 
great wonder flowers bloom but once in a life- 
time. The wonder flowers in personal affection, 
the wonder flowers in art, the wonder flowers 
in poetry, the wonder flowers in nature, — when 
they have bloomed for us, their fragrance and 
their beauty satisfy forever. 

Jesus said to the woman at Samaria, 
"Everyone that drinketh of this water shall 
thirst again; but whosoever drinketh of the 
water that I shall give him shall never thirst," 
and the woman cried out from natural impulse, 
"Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, 

[54] 



Power from Doing 

neither come all the way hither to draw. ' ' She 
misunderstood as so many thousands have 
since. The thought of Jesus was this, — when 
you once drink of that water of eternal life, you 
will be satisfied for you will know it is the last 
word in drink. You will know when you have 
once taken a drink of that water of life that you 
have drunk at the source of all life, and that 
there is nothing more beyond it. You will 
never ask for another kind of drink because 
you know you have the last word in divine and 
human satisfaction in drinking. But, you will 
want more of the same kind. You will want to 
come again, and again, and again, to drink of 
that water of eternal life, and the more you 
drink, the more you will want to drink. 

What men and women miss by refusing the 
challenge of the text, those only can know who 
have won ! What men and women miss by re- 
fusing to lift up the Son of man, is the knowl- 
edge of His friendship and the power of His 
love. What men and women miss by refusing 
to lift up the Son of man is the consciousness of 
their own strength and the transfiguration of 
their own lives. Only when I have committed 
a poem to memory can I understand its secret 
fountains of life. Only when I have drunk deep 
of the well can I understand the satisfying 
waters. Only when I have stood on the highest 
pinnacle and looked off from the top of the 
world can I understand the joys of climbing. 
Only when I have lifted up the Son of man can 

[55] 



God Translated 

I understand who he is or what his power, or 
what life's greatest glory is. 

May I invite you to the task? May I spread 
before you the Book? May I lay my finger on 
the new impulses to your life, crying, "Take 
this, and this, and win"? 0, the unspeakable 
joy of having found in the Christ your own 
manhood complete, your own womanhood com- 
plete, and the prophecy of that glad day when 
you shall be satisfied because you awake in his 
likeness ! 



[56] 



IV 
FRAGRANT DEEDS 



"And the house was filled with the odor of the ointment."— 
John 12:8. 



IV 
FRAGRANT DEEDS 

Certain places of earth will ever be associ- 
ated with certain persons or deeds. Gettysburg 
is linked with that great battle and the address 
of Abraham Lincoln. Trafalgar Bay and Nel- 
son's name are married forever. The Pass at 
Thermopylae, the thin red line at Waterloo, the 
little Belgian guards at Liege, can never be 
forgotten. 

There are also tender memories of immortal 
loves that cling around a place. Go down to t 
Ayr by the river Doon and you feel the spirit 
of Robert Burns as a living presence. Wander 
along the beautiful lake road at Windemere 
and William Wordsworth comes to walk with 
you and direct your thoughts. Speed away 
until you stand in far Galilee, by the shores of 
that lovely lake, and Jesus Christ is instantly 
by your side. 

' ' My Saviour comes and walks with me, 
A sweet communion here have we, 
He gently leads me by the hand, 
For this is Heaven's borderland. ' ' 

A beautiful memory has come to be associ- 
ated in a not very strange way with a beautiful 
odor. We somehow think of the influence and 

[59] 



God Translated 

life of certain people in certain places in the 
sense of rare perfume. No one of sensitive 
nature may go out to Malmaison, twelve miles 
from Paris, and walk amid those beautiful 
grounds, enter those quiet old rooms, without 
seeming to gain a fragrance from the sorrow^ 
tragedy, and love of Josephine. But, if one be 
so dull that no fragrance of that life is known, 
by entering Josephine's private apartments, 
one may yet actually smell the odor of the musk 
of which she was so fond, and which yet clings 
to her rooms, though she has been gone this 
hundred years. 

In the same way, do we think of an odor of 
words or deeds. I can recall, from my own life, 
words and deeds the odor of which makes my 
blood hot and my muscles tighten. The mean 
coward who dominates because he happens to 
be in a position where he can do so is a mal- 
odorous mortal. How many boys and girls 
have I seen, discouraged and defeated, de- 
stroyed even, by such brutes. I carry hot in 
my heart today a story recently told me of 
such a bully and his brutal drive with a sensi- 
tive boy. I think my gladness has a genuine 
touch of glee at the downfall of such monsters. 

But there are memories that always bring the 
sense of the springtime, and the daisies, and 
the violets, and the clover. There are memo- x 
ries which always bring a smile to the cheek 
and a new gleam to the eye, — memories of love, 
memories of helpfulness, memories of kind 

[60] 



Fragrant Deeds 

words which can never die e'en though they 
fade. 

The story, as read this morning, of that ban- 
quet at Bethany with the deed of Mary will 
never be lost from memory, either in this world 
or in the world to come, for Jesus said, — 
Wherever my Gospel is preached the story of 
what she hath done will forever be told. 

Jesus had been the best friend of that home 
for possibly three years. But real friendship 
like that is never measured by years. It seems 
like a friendship that always has been and 
always will be. The greatest pleasure of that 
home had been to serve and entertain Jesus. 
Martha's specialty was serving, Mary's, 
entertaining. 

They had in some way understood him, and 
he had understood them. There was perfect 
confidence between them. But, by and by, sor- 
row flooded their little home. Great grief 
shook their souls. Lazarus was dead. They 
sent for Jesus. He came. He went with them 
to the tomb. At his command the grave was 
opened. Then he called with a voice that knew 
no boundaries, "Lazarus, come forth." He 
came ! No wonder that little home loved Jesus. 
No wonder they wanted to honor him. And 
they made him a banquet. 

Let us go back to the story as read, that we 
may know in a larger way the meaning of our 
lesson for the morning. 

You remember the chapter opens, "Jesus, 

[61] 



God Translated 

therefore, six days before the Passover came 
to Bethany." Ah, how much may be accom- 
plished in six days ! Some of us who are here 
today, well and strong, before six days are gone 
may take our feet from their accustomed paths, 
and our voice be silent to those who love us, 
and our souls be away to the eternities. Yes- 
terday's papers record the fact that a young 
man went to work at eight o 'clock in the morn- 
ing well and strong ; at ten o 'clock he fell from 
a stage; at twelve o'clock he died; at three 
o 'clock they buried him. 

Six days before the Passover! Those six 
days mean much here. All the rest of the Book 
of John, from the twelfth chapter to the twen- 
tieth chapter, is to deal with what happened in 
those six days. 

If we count time in the language of our pres- 
ent day, this banquet took place on Saturday. 
The next day was Sunday when the triumphal 
entry into Jerusalem occurred. The next day, 
Monday, the curse of the fig tree and the cleans- 
ing of the temple; Tuesday, the awful battle 
with the scribes and Pharisees against whom 
He hurled those awful anathemas. "Wednesday 
is the day of silence, — to me the most pathetic 
day. He wandered out over the hills I have no 
doubt. He talked with those he loved in the 
home. We have not a word of record of what 
came on that day. On Thursday he comes into 
Jerusalem. Thursday night he ordains the 
Lord's Supper, and is betrayed; on Friday, 

[62] 



Fragrant Deeds 

the mock trial, the crucifixion; on Saturday, 
he lies in his grave and the stone is before the 
door. Six days before the Passover Jesus came 
up to Bethany. Six days ! 

Why, we are told that in six days the Lord 
made the heavens and the earth. The first day, 
light; the second day, firmament; the third 
day He divided the seas from the land and said 
to the land, — be fruitful; the fourth day, cre- 
ated He the sun, moon and stars ; the fifth day, 
all the lower orders of animal life; and the 
sixth day He created man, the triumph of His 
glory, and rested on the seventh. 

Six days before the Passover Jesus came up 
to Bethany. He had all the world before him 
and six days in which to live. Why didn't he 
go to Nazareth? Why didn't he go to Joppa? 
Why didn't he go to some of those villages and 
cities scattered over the land! He wanted to 
come to Bethany. Why? Out there, they could 
understand him. Out there, he could get the i 
kind of a welcome he needed, and the kind of 
atmosphere in which he could live. 

If Jesus were in trouble, would he come to 
your home? Would he? There are three con- 
ditions under which he would come and only 
three. 

First, personal love. I do not mean the 
shoddy stuff that you speak of so often these 
days as love. I mean the love man carries to 
man; that David and Jonathan love. Jesus 
Christ will come to your home if you love him. 

[63] 



God Translated 

If you do not love him, lie will never come. He 
cannot come, for there is no atmosphere into 
which he can enter and rest. 

The second thing is an understanding of what 
he wants to do. I seek out, and you seek out, 
in this world, the men you understand and who 
understand what you want to do, understand 
your mission and understand your ideals. I 
go to these men when I want their advice in 
any department of my life and work. Jesus 
will come to you, boys and girls, and men and 
women, when you can understand the meaning 
and mission of his life, and that is only after 
you have been with him alone to get from him 
what his life means. 

The third thing necessary is hearty hospital- 
ity. If Jesus Christ can come to your home and 
find personal love, and understanding of his 
mission, and a genuine hospitality, then he will 
come to your home as quickly as he went to 
Bethany. 0, the joy of being able to entertain 
Jesus Christ in our homes! To think that he 
would want to come to our homes and to our 
hearts above all other places, because he finds 
the kind of atmosphere that shall give strength 
to him in his hours of need. 

Note, also, — they made him a banquet. 
Strange is it not that we would do that same 
thing today? You see a banquet is more than 
a custom. A real banquet is love's expression 
for some personal benefit. I doubt not it will 
ever endure, — the impulse to express one's self 

[64] 



Fragrant Deeds 

thus, by taking a friend to table and there, by- 
eating with him and by conversation, tell to him 
more clearly than words can tell, our pride and 
joy in his life. 

They made Jesus a banquet and invited 
friends and loved ones. They seated them, or 
rather, reclined them at the table. We are told 
what each one of the three in that household 
did. Lazarus reclined at the table with his 
guests. You remember that they always had 
a divan on which they reclined, supporting 
themselves with the left hand while eating 
with the right. Lazarus was host. He had to 
talk with Christ. What a privilege! How we 
would treasure it ! What a memory ! Lazarus 
could never forget. But we have the same 
privilege. Do you recall those words in the 
Book of Bevelation? "Behold, I stand at the 
door and knock. If any man hear my voice 
and open the door, I will come in to him and sup 
with him and he with me. ' ' We may sit at table 
with Jesus and talk with him. It is a great 
thing to be able to speak frankly and under- 
standingly with Jesus Christ. 

Martha served. It is an honor to have the 
hostess serve the guests. A very great honor 
it was then; an honor it is still. Martha 
served, and you can see her as she went about 
with her eyes keen and quick to see every need, 
and fulfill every want, making those tables the 
happy places they were designed to be. With- 
out Martha, they could not have had the ban- 

[65] 



God Translated 

quet. Without some of the hostesses of this 
church, we could not carry on the work as we 
do. Martha served at the tables. He that is 
chief must be servant of all. 

But Mary, — what would Mary do? All this, 
thought Mary, was, so to speak, an external 
recognition. What could express the un- 
plumbed depths of love and devotion in her 
soul? She was satisfied in giving the banquet, 
in the joy of the restored home and the restored 
loves, but this expression by banquet did not 
reach deeply enough. Her heart called for 
something more. 

It was the custom for a guest to be received 
by the host, made to recline upon a divan, while 
a servant removed the sandals and bathed the 
tired feet with cool water, wiping them gently 
with towels provided. 

I wonder if Mary noticed that the servants 
were careless in doing this, and that particles 
of sand were left there still to irritate? I won- 
der if his feet had been scratched by the thorns 
as he came along those narrow foot-paths, and 
that even yet the blood could be seen? What- 
ever it was that gave the suggestion to her, love 
plunged to a deeper depth by employing the old 
custom to express undying devotion. As Christ 
lay at the table, Mary came in, kneeled at his 
feet, broke a flask of nard — most precious, — 
bathed those feet with the ointment and then 
gently wiped them with her own beautiful hair. 
Slowly, slowly the perfume steals out into 

[66] 



Fragrant Deeds 

the room, — the beautiful, beautiful perfume. 
Slowly those at table become conscious of its 
loveliness. Judas knew its value. He was a 
merchant from Jerusalem. John did not. 
John was a fisherman. He never forgot the 
odor. I wonder why? Our first experiences 
with things are generally the experiences we 
remember. John was not used to the more 
beautiful things of life. The first time John 
smelled that wonderful perfume stamped it for- 
ever in his memory. He said, ' i The house was 
filled with the odor of the ointment. ' ' The per- 
fumes of that act will reach to the farthest 
confines of eternity. 

I want you to note also, — there is a waste 
that is saving, and there is a saving that wastes. 
The price of that flask of perfumed ointment 
was worth a laborer's wages for a whole year. 
That would represent today hundreds of dollars 
in American coin. It was the most precious 
thing that Mary knew. Yet, she eagerly 
broke the flask that she might anoint the feet 
of Him whom they honored and whom she 
loved. 

Now, your utilitarian methods do not always 
fit. Judas threw up his hands in horror. Why 
wasn't this sold for three hundred shillings and 
given to the poor! Poor Judas, you have ten 
thousand brothers in this world today, just as 
limited as you. I want to tell you this, — the 
man or the woman who is most eager to give 
for love's sake, never forgets the poor. But 

[67] 



God Translated 

the people who are mean in love's expression 
are always mean to the poor. If we really 
learned how to express our loves, then we 
would know how to be kind to those less for- 
tunate than ourselves. I doubt if ever a soul 
or a basket went from Mary's door without 
being filled. But Mary knew how to give her 
all to express her love for her Master, the 
Christ. 

Why wasn't this sold! Didn't Judas have v 
some plea after all? Wasn't he right, some- 
what? Had Mary any right to waste things 
that way, when there were so many people who 
were hungry? 

Shall I get for myself money, and books, and 
culture, and friends, when there are so many 
people in need? Yes! No! It depends! Jesus 
answered it in his prayer, "For their sakes I 
sanctify myself." I went once to the Dean of 
the Divinity School in which I was studying, 
with a question that troubled me. Was I right 
in surrounding myself with all the beautiful 
things I could command, while I was being 
helped by what was called "the Lord's 
money"? "Is it right for me to spend money 
that way?" The old Dean looked at me for a 
moment and then said, "My boy, make yourself 
into the finest kind of a servant of Jesus Christ, 
and get every beautiful and lovely and inspiring 
thing into your life you can, that you may go 
out into the world a fit apostle to carry 
the message of God." Get money, comforts, 

[68] 



Fragrant Deeds 

graces? No, if it means selfishness; yes, if it 
means helpfulness to others. 

Mary broke the flask, for it meant a full ex- 
pression of that deeper love for Christ. Many 
lives and loves have been blighted because of 
an attempt to be too economical. It is some- 
times a question of giving all and sparing 
nothing. 

A little boy who spends his only ten cents 
that he may get a gift for mother is trying to 
express what Mary expressed. Is it wrong in 
the boy? 

Sydney Carton, described by Dickens in his 
"Tale of Two Cities," is expressing what 
Mary expressed. You remember that Charles 
Darnay was lying in prison under sentence of 
death. His beautiful wife, Lucie, was in 
despair. There was no escape from the fury 
of the Paris mob. Sydney Carton, whose life 
had been dissipated and worthless, hopelessly 
loved Lucie. He knew her fearful agony, and 
he rose to a sacrifice of beautiful love. By the 
aid of the jailor he entered the cell of Charles 
Darnay and took his place, after drugging the 
prisoner. Darnay was released. Carton was 
taken to the guillotine. Dickens described the 
last scene in the life of this man, "one of the 
few noble moments of his entire career," and 
he closes the scene as Carton goes to his execu- 
tion, saying, "It is a far, far better thing that 
I do than I have ever done: it is a far, far 
better rest that I go to than I have ever known. " 

[69] 



God Translated 

Sydney Carton had given his all, as Mary did, 
to express his love. 

Such a gift enriches the giver more than the 
receiver. Charles Darnay and his wife, Lncie, 
could never, in the years to come, rise to the 
majestic heights to which this man rose in giv- 
ing his life thus. "They said of him about 
the city that night that it was the peaceful- 
est man's face ever beheld on that scaffold. 
Many added that he looked sublime and 
prophetic. ' ' 

Once I gave two dollars and a half for one- 
half pound of grapes! You say, "I did not 
think the pastor would do that," especially as 
in that city where the grapes were bought, little 
babies were dying for the want of good milk, 
and many people were hungry and the bread 
line stretched far. "I didn't think the pastor 
would be as wasteful as that. ' ' Wait, — a letter 
had come from the bedside of my mother, say- 
ing this, "Mother has expressed a desire for 
some grapes." I scoured the city, up and 
down, in and out, and at last I found one-half 
pound of grapes imported from England, and 
I bought them and sent them to her? Did I 
waste the money? A hundred times the price 
wouldn't half express the love that went with 
the little half-pound of grapes, or the joy that 
now abides in my heart. 

Mary expressed her all. Love must express 
its all. That is why it is more blessed to give . 
than to receive. The giving of our best en- 

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Fragrant Deeds 

larges us most. Every true sacrifice we have 
made has enlarged us; every real self -grati- 
fication has shrunken us. 

May I say it with all the deepest reverence 
of my soul,— the heart of God was enlarged by 
the gift of His most precious love in the form 
and life of Jesus Christ. God's love was 
greater after the gift than it was before. We 
are now speaking in human terms and dealing 
in human thoughts as thus we speak, but if 
man's heart is enlarged through the gifts 
of perfect love, the heart of God, the Fa- 
ther, is enlarged through the gifts of perfect 
love. 

The attractive power of love for Jesus Christ 
is the most mighty power known. He seems 
to have possessed, and yet possesses, the power 
to draw all the finest and noblest impulses of 
our race. All the sublimest loves, both human 
and divine, center in and around Him. As long 
as Jesus Christ can attract such men as John, 
and such women as Mary, love's perfume will 
never fail, love 's gifts will never cease. 

As I have said, your utilitarian methods of \ 
yardstick and dollar do not work here. Judas 
was moved to cry out against this seeming 
waste. "When he would chide Mary for the ex- 
travagance, Jesus said, "Let her alone. 
Against the day of my burial hath she done 
this." Mary did not know her deed was pro- 
phetic. The impulse of her love prompted her 
to do, but the doing was a prophecy. It was 

[71] 



God Translated 

the first anointment by human love of the body 
of Jesus Christ. Wherever that Gospel of 
Jesus Christ is preached on this planet, or ten 
thousand others in ten thousand other worlds, 
and in whatever language it is told, and in 
whatever generation, the sacrifice of Mary's 
love shall be told, and he will live in the immor- 
tality of the deed as well as Mary, the sweet 
girl of Bethany. 

Such have ever been the great acts of life. 
The real outpouring of the heart's devotion has 
again and again become the prophetic note for 
coming generations. 

Amid the many, many marvels, I have often 
marvelled that in His great laboratory God 
could have compounded such different, and 
rare, and wonderful odors, — the odor of the 
rose, the odor of the lily, the odor of the violet : 
odors compounded in such a way that their very 
breath brings a sense of absolute satisfaction. 

The sweet odor of deeds abides, and we go 
often to the places where those deeds were per- 
formed, or those poems were written, or those 
songs were sung, to sense once again the odors 
rising from the deeds. 

"You may break, you may shatter the vase, if you will, 
But the scent of the roses will hang 'round it still." 

The sweet odor of love, when hearts pour out 
the last expression of their unutterable affection 
is eternal. 

The sweet odor of the Christ life shall cling 

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Fragrant Deeds 

around those who live for him, and out from 
such a presence shall go influences like the odor 
from Mary's ointment, that will fill the house, 
will fill the community, will fill the world, and 
God will be honored and glorified. 



[73J 



V 

WE WOULD SEE JESUS 



'Sir, we would see Jesus." — John 12:21. 



WE WOULD SEE JESUS 

We are now dealing with the second day in 
the Passion Week of our Lord, namely, — Tues- 
day. Matthew, Mark and Luke devote pages to 
its happenings. All day Jesus was in the 
temple preaching, teaching, asking questions, 
uttering parables, challenging the people, wear- 
ing himself out for a hungry and sin-sick 
world. 

Amid those temple porches there had been 
listening to him that day men of other tongues. 
Greeks there were, who were not permitted in 
the inner temple. A balustrade was put up be- 
tween the outer and the inner court, and upon 
it an inscription in Greek, forbidding any 
Gentile on pain of death to enter the inner 
enclosure. 

They had waited in the outer court, leaning 
upon the balustrade, and had listened and 
thrilled with wonder at his words. New hopes 
were born to them. Strange quickenings of 
spirit had come to them, — wonderful illumina- 
tions of their own yearnings. They had the 
great outlines of philosophy, of the beauties of 
art, and of the melodies of rhetoric, but they 
wanted something more. These could not sat- 

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God Translated 

isfy, especially after they heard such words as 
fell from his lips today. 

Now it is toward evening, and the sun is set- 
ting. He had been speaking of that other sun 
setting that should come with the day of judg- 
ment, and the darkness to follow. Slowly, the 
sun goes down over those western hills, drop- 
ping into the great sea, the sea of the Mediter- 
ranean. The day is done. Jesus comes from 
the inner court into the outer court, and his 
disciples follow him. Immediately there ac- 
costs one of those disciples this band of Greek 
men who had been listening the day through. 
Coming up to Philip, they said, ' ' Sir, we would 
see Jesus.' ' 

Our author, John, is the only one of the Gos- 
pel writers to mention this particular fact. 
The reason is that he had a definite thought in 
mind in introducing it. He desires to show the 
accumulative force of the work of Jesus thus 
far, so he introduces in rapid succession three 
epoch making incidents. The first was that 
beautiful story of the banquet at Bethany, — 
Martha serving, Lazarus the host, Mary pour- 
ing out her very soul in the sweet perfume that 
brought so much of joy from her heart into the 
heart of the Christ. By that, he reveals the 
power of Jesus to win personal love and devo- 
tion. That banquet scene will never be for- 
gotten. The second incident was the triumphal 
entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. That was 
simply another way of telling the fact that 

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We Would See Jesus 

Jesus had gripped the imaginations of his own 
people, and that all the Jewish world was ready 
to acclaim him as their King. By this incident 
John reveals the power of Jesus to win the love 
of the nation. The third incident is that of our 
text. The Greeks came to him. This is de- 
signed to show that the Gospel of Christ not 
only claimed personal love and loyalty, and 
loyalty from his nation, but also that it was 
reaching into the widest circles, and the Gentile 
world was turning its attention toward him. 
The widest of human circles would ere long 
know the Christ. It is a wonderful climax our 
author is introducing, showing that Jesus has 
the power to win the individual, the nation, and 
the world. 

It will be interesting and instructive for us to 
study this last scene as a prophecy of that 
greatest triumph to be, — when every knee shall 
bow and every tongue shall confess him as 
Lord to the glory of God, the Father: when 
they shall come from the East, and from the 
West, and from the North, and from the South, 
and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, 
and Jacob in the Kingdom of God : when 

"From Greenland's icy mountains, 
From India's coral strand, 
Where Afric's sunny fountains 
Eoll down their golden sand: 
From many an ancient river, 
From many a palmy plain, 
They call us to deliver 
Their land from error's chain": 

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God Translated 

when that vast throng that John saw, the thou- 
sands on thousands which no man could num- 
ber, coming up out of great tribulation, having 
washed their robes and made them white in the 
blood of the Lamb, were filling Heaven with the 
grandest music as they sang, "Blessing and 
honor and glory and power be unto him who 
sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb 
forever more." 

The coming of these Greeks was but prophecy 
of that triumphal day when Jesus shall reign, 
whose right it is, and the kingdoms of this 
world shall have become the Kingdom of our 
Lord and of his Christ. 

The Gentile Greeks Sought Jesus. 

They came to Philip. The name "Philip" 
is Greek. Philip was of Bethsaida. Bethsaida 
contained a large colony of Greeks. These 
Greeks, then, appealed to one, if not of their 
own blood, at least of their own city, who un- 
derstood their language. It was a perfectly 
natural thing to do. We turn to people who 
understand our language and commune with 
them. We do not understand people of another 
tongue as well as we do people of our own 
tongue. Let an Englishman be ever so fine a 
scholar in French, or German, or Italian, he 
never can be a Frenchman, or a German, or an 
Italian. Only an American can thoroughly 
understand an American. Travellers reveal 

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We Would See Jesus 

some very distressing and some very pleasing 
mistakes when they are dealing with other 
peoples in their language. A friend of mine 
in Paris went into a shop to purchase some 
articles. He talked to the clerk in what he sup- 
posed was very fine Parisian. The clerk 
listened for a moment, and then said to him in 
good English, but with that slight French 
accent, "Sir, will you kindly ask me in 
English?" 

These Greeks came to Philip because Philip 
could doubtless understand their language, and, 
what was more, understand their yearnings. 
It is a great blessing that a missionary cannot 
go into India and at once begin to preach with- 
out learning the language. In learning the 
language, he has time also to learn the im- 
pulses of the people. Oh, we walk rough-shod 
over people of other nations, simply because we 
do not understand the impulses, the national 
desires and yearnings of those people of other 
education and other language. 

They came to Philip, saying, l ' Sir, we would 
see Jesus." The Greek word "Kurie" (Sir) 
is a title of respect. It meant to designate one 
who has some authority and control. Philip 
was a disciple : therefore, Philip had the power 
to introduce these Greeks to Jesus. Philip was 
not a very prominent disciple, but he had this 
inestimable privilege. 

It is a great thing to be in a position of trust. 
It is a great thing to be in a position to intro- 

[81] 



God Translated 

duce a person to Jesus Christ. Valets of kings 
have been greatly honored. Private secretaries 
to presidents have places of great responsi- 
bility. But the greatest of all positions is to 
be a personal friend and disciple of Jesus 
Christ, in a position to introduce others to him. 

Note, — Philip was honored because he could 
introduce these Greeks to Jesus, and the very 
address of the Greeks give him honor. The 
very word was applied by honorable men to a 
man in such a position. No Christian man or 
woman ever yet moved in a society represent- 
ing Jesus Christ without gaining honor from 
that society and from the Christ whom they 
serve. That is the reason why some of the 
lowest, the humblest, the most miserable, the 
most degraded of men and women have risen 
and gone out into the world to become giants 
of power. They received that honor from the 
presence of Jesus Christ. 

John B. Gough climbed out of the gutter, 
climbed up to everlasting fame, flinging his 
words of defiance in the face of the organized 
liquor traffic. John Hadley, throwing off the 
gunny sack of rags that had been his clothing, 
and taking on the clothing of power, goes out 
into New York City to win the destitute and 
the fallen ; goes out into the world as a mighty 
evangel; goes up to Heaven with the broken 
shackles of thousands on thousands of those 
who have been won from appetite and passion 
to a sweet love for Jesus Christ. 

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We Would See Jesus 

But I want you to note the language these 
Greeks used. The request is not as our English 
translation would imply. It was not a pleading 
request such that, if Philip refused, they would 
go away. It was vastly stronger than that. 
Their language, in deepest respect, rang with a 
challenge like this, "Sir, we propose and are 
determined to see Jesus.' ' There is a ring in 
that. There is good red blood behind that. 
There is power there. When you strike that 
kind of people, something will move. Your 
bowing, fawning, apologetic, hesitating, uncer- 
tain people always fail. That is the reason 
thousands of business men fail. That is the 
reasons thousands of Christians fail. They are 
of the lukewarm individuals who get spewed 
out. 

The great pivotal thought of the Gospel is 
determination. So many people fancy that 
with the Gospel, they are dealing with senti- 
ment. "Why, I do not feel just right. My 
feelings do not induce me to take this step." 
Feelings to the wind! "Whosoever will, may 
come." It is the will and not the feelings. 
Queen Esther knew that the life of her people 
was at stake. Her uncle, Mordecai, had called 
her, to show to her the impending doom of her- 
self and her people. She must act and at once. 
She must risk her life to save it and to save the 
life of her people. She dresses herself most 
beautifully, and ere the latch is lifted that per- 
mits her to step from her own apartments into 

[83] 



God Translated 

the presence of the king unannounced, she turns 
to her uncle saying, "I go, and if I perish, I 
perish." Will, resolution, determination, — 
that is what wins. If I know what I am after— 
and I had better find out before I start — and 
then put my life behind it, I will get it in spite 
of the whole world. "Sir, we propose and 
are determined to see Jesus." "Whosoever 
will . . . ." It is not, — whosoever wishes, who- 
sover desires, shall go into the Kingdom of 
Heaven. Such will never get into the Kingdom, 
and they would be no good if they could. 
"Whosover will . . . ." It is ivill. Your 
weakly sentimentality is no good in the Chris- 
tian religion, and I am very sure it is no good 
in the business world. "Whosoever will . . . ." 

A night I never will forget is one of those in 
that great temple in Philadelphia, when Billy 
Sunday, by an almost superhuman appeal, 
lifted by the elation of his own moving spirit, 
sprang to his chair, and to his pulpit, and lift- 
ing his hands far over his head, cried, "Come 
on, ye who would make Jesus Christ King of 
your lives." The dust began to rise in that 
great temple where twenty thousand people 
were assembled, and I watched as over four 
hundred men, with grim determination upon 
their faces, came marching up the aisles and 
took the hand of that great evangelist, thereby 
saying, "I crown Jesus Christ as King of my 
heart." 

Why, said Jesus, the Kingdom of Heaven is 

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We Would See Jesus 

taken by violence. When you get men like those 
Greeks saying, "Sirs, we propose and are de- 
termined to see Jesus," something is going to 
happen. The challenge made Philip jump. 
Philip was one of those weaker men who did 
not dare take responsibility. What should he 
do? Quick, Philip! And, he goes to Andrew 
and tells Andrew. Good, if you are afraid to 
lead a man to Jesus Christ, in God's name, go 
get somebody who is not afraid. Andrew and 
Philip lead these Greeks to Jesus. 

Jesus Answers Their Questions. 

What they said has been kept by no record. 
It makes no difference what they did say. 
Jesus knew what they wanted. In their desire 
to see and hear him, Jesus saw and heard the 
whole world longing, — the heart ache of the 
centuries. Here were the first fruits of that 
immeasurable harvest which should be gath- 
ered from all lands for all ages. How his heart 
leaped with joy ! He forgot the tired feeling of 
the day! He forgot the bitter opposition of 
those leaders whom he had come to save ! He 
forgot the treachery that was even now about 
him, planning for his own death ! He was swept 
away in the elation of his own spirit. It was 
the same elation that came to him on the day 
when he stood by the well at Samaria and the 
woman came to draw water. As he revealed to 
her his great mission and the all-conquering 

[85] 



God Translated 

future of his Kingdom, he forgot his tired feel- 
ing. His eyes grew bright, and his face was 
profuse with glory, so much so that when the 
disciples came back, they wondered, having left 
him tired and weary, that they should find him 
refreshed and buoyant. And they said, "Has 
anybody given him aught to eat 1 ' ' He replied, 
* * I have meat to eat ye know not of. ' ' 

Now, in the elation of his spirit, Jesus for- 
gets that day, — the day that is but four days 
over the hill-tops yonder, and the death that lies 
there waiting. His spirit springs in gladness 
and he cries out, "Now is the hour come that 
the Son of man should be glorified. " "No, 
Christ, no, you make a mistake, ' ' we cry. ' i You 
mean crucified. Now is the hour come that the 
Son of man shall be crucified." No, no, not 
crucified, glorified. You short-sighted people 
can see only the cross. His eye looks beyond 
the cross to the wonderful triumph that shall 
come, and the eternal glory that shall be his. 

How shall he be glorified? Here is a grain 
of wheat. Keep it and you have but one grain 
alone. As long as you keep it thus, you have 
but the one grain. Ere long decay shall destroy 
it and the grain of wheat is annihilated. Plant 
it, cover it up with the damp soil. Let the rain 
fall and the sun shine. That grain of wheat dies, 
but it lives again. It lives amid the waving 
heads of grain. It lives in a thousand, perhaps 
ten thousand, lives. Here is a life. Keep it and 
you have one life alone, consumed in its per- 

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We Would See Jesus 

sonal gratifications. Ere long that life is done. 
Plant it. Let it die in great service for others, 
and it shall spring up in a thousand, perhaps 
ten thousand, lives, and live forever and ever. 
That is the glorified life of the wheat. It shall 
live to multiply, and feed, and save. That is 
the glorified life of the individual. It shall 
live, and multiply, and feed, and save. That is 
the glorified life of Jesus Christ, dying that it 
may live in others and fructify generation after 
generation, worlds without end. 

Could those Greeks get the meaning? Their 
minds were alert, their senses quick. They 
saw the answer. Did they turn back to say to 
themselves, "Why, that is what Socrates did. 
He died that he might live. That is what Plato 
did. He died that he might live. That is what 
Phidias did. He died that he might live. ' ' 

That is the only way we can live. He that 
would save his life must lose it in service for 
God. Let life flow out for God, and life flows 
in from God. I store electricity and seek to 
keep it. It leaks away, seeps itself out and is 
gone, disseminated through the world. I store 
electricity and liberate it in the work I desire 
it to accomplish, and though I liberate it in the 
far corners of the earth, it will come back to 
the place from whence it began. Our life used 
for God means life coming back from God. He 
that will save his life, shall lose it. 

The Greeks stand for beauty. No other na- 
tion of ancient or modern days ever rose so 

[87] 



God Translated 

high in the art of beauty and culture. The 
Hebrews stand for duty. No other nation of 
ancient or modern days had such a sublime con- 
ception of the duty one owes to his Creator. 
These Greeks bring their sense of beauty to 
the touchstone of duty, and beauty and duty 
combine to produce the fairest result that earth 
or Heaven can ever know, — a Christian man, a 
Christian woman, growing into the likeness of 
Jesus Christ. 

Jesus Challenged Them. 

They came to him to know his life. He chal- 
lenges them. He says, — Do you want to be one 
of my disciples? Then get your cross and put 
it on your back and be ready. Perhaps, from 
the place where they stood, they could see 
Eoman crosses. History tells us that at one 
time there were eight thousand Eoman crosses 
on which had been crucified eight thousand 
Jews who had rebelled against Eome. Jesus 
said, "If you want to be my disciples, put 
your cross on your back and come after me. 
You will be crucified sometime if you follow 
me, so have your crosses ready and save 
the trouble of running around to find the wood 
on which to be crucified. " 

Ah, the old Bible never calls us to easy 
things. The Gospel challenges us to our limit. 
Jesus Christ invites us to the hardest campaign 
ever set for soldiers. When Garibaldi called to 

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We Would See Jesus 

the young men of Italy for the redemption of 
his nation, they answered him, "What will you 
give us?" He replied, "Coarse diet, sleepless 
nights, hunger, cold, wounds, blood, death, but 
glorious victory for our land. ' ' Italy answered 
with a shout, "We are ready," and Garibaldi 
led them to freedom. 

Eecently, in a great conference in America, 
a plea was made for recruits for the ministry. 
The need was vividly shown. The pleasant side 
of a pastor 's life was painted in brilliant colors. 
Those who entered the ministry would find 
position and honor waiting them. Not a re- 
sponse came. Later in the day, a missionary 
from the far East stood before that same con- 
gregation. He told of the conditions out of 
which he had come : the lonely vigils of those 
who kept watch on the frontiers of the King- 
dom of God. He told of the millions who were 
yet wandering in darkness and death. He 
pleaded for light-bringers. He revealed the 
sacrifices, the hardships, the death that would 
be theirs to die for the Kingdom's sake. Then, 
lifting his hand in a yearning over that con- 
gregation, he cried, "Who will volunteer in 
service like that for Jesus Christ?" and over 
a score of young men and women arose to 
surrender their lives for such a service. 

But if Jesus Christ was going to challenge 
those Greeks, he must himself be challenged, 
and so comes on the battle we shall see. Is he 
able to meet his own standard? My challenge 

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God Translated 

to you is of little use unless I have been able to 
stand my own appeal. An intoxicated man 
preaching temperance is a grotesque thing. 
A leper preaching health is a ghastly thing. A 
sinful, black-hearted man preaching Jesus 
Christ is a damnable thing. Before I may 
challenge you, I myself must answer my own 
challenge. I could not lead you unless I went 
before. I could not preach the Gospel in tri- 
umphant note unless I had been moulded by it. 
Jesus Christ must be challenged. If he calls to 
sacrifice, he must lead in that. Hence comes 
on his own fierce battle. "Now is my soul ex- 
ceeding troubled," he cries. "Have I the 
strength? Can I go on? Can I endure ?" 
There stands that cross over the hills just 
three days hence. He saw it all : he knew it all. 
Can you feel the intensity of his struggle, the 
humanness of his cry? Can you see the sweat 
that comes out on his face? This is the be- 
ginning of that awful struggle. You get it in 
a more intensive form on Thursday night, 
when he is in the Garden of Gethsemane alone 
under the trees. There he prays while drops 
of sweat and blood mingle and ooze from his 
skin. You get it in the most awful form, when, 
upon the cross, as the darkness gathered, He 
cried out in such agony, "Eloi, Eloi, lama 
sabachthani?" ("My God, my God, why hast 
Thou forsaken me!") 

Now he cries, "What shall I say? Father, 
save me from this hour ! No, no, for this cause 

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We Would See Jesus 

I came to this hour. I came to give my life for 
millions. I came to reveal your love, your 
Fatherhood. I came to redeem the world. Do 
you remember up in Heaven that day I made 
the decision? Do you remember the moment I 
left my home? The angels burst through and 
sang to the weary, sin-cursed, dying humanity, 
' Unto you is born this day a Saviour. ' Nay, 
I cannot say, ' Father, save me from this hour. ' 
For this hour I came, and the world has been 
waiting, and I must be its Saviour. No, no, I 
will not say, 'Father, save me from this hour.' 
I get my victory over fear, over death ; then I 
say, ' Father, glorify thyself.' " A voice spoke, 
"I have both glorified it and will glorify it 
again. ' ' 

Ah, that voice that stills the storm. Ah, that 
voice that speaks peace in the soul. You have 
heard it in the fiercest battles of your life. 
You have felt a calm come stealing over you 
when the storm would almost overwhelm your 
little boat. Let others call it thunder, or angels 
speaking, you know it was the voice of God 
speaking in your soul, and you have arisen and 
gone out into the world a victor. The voice in 
his soul was the voice of victory. Now, he 
grows calm. He has won inside. Therefore, 
the outside victory is determined, is sure. 

Meanwhile, the sun has set. He leaves them 
at Jerusalem, and goes his way out to dear old 
Bethany that he may rest and grow calm. The 
hour of the cross has come. The Gentile world 

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God Translated 

will follow. He had answered all their ques- 
tions and challenged them. They were ready. 
He was ready. Heaven was ready. Earth was 
ready. Forward! March! And the tramp of 
that conquering host grows louder and louder, 
for they march to victory. 

Do you want to see Jesus Christ? Then get 
your heart right, and you shall see him, for the 
pure in heart see God. The pure heart is the 
portal of vision. Do you want to see Jesus 
Christ f Then, away with you to the firing line 
where the battle rages. 

"Lead where the most has been dared and done, 
Where the heart of the battle has bled," 

and there you will find him, the great Christ. 
There shall ye see him. 

Dr. Alexander Duff, the great Scotch mis- 
sionary to India, returned after his years had 
been spent in marvelously fruitful service in 
that far land. Coming to Edinburgh, he stood 
before a great congregation, and made one of 
the most moving pleas in missionary history 
for young men and women to consecrate their 
life to misionary service. As he closed that 
address, he said, "If the Queen of England 
should call you to go to the battle's front and 
carry with you the crosses of St. Andrew and 
St. George, how you would leap to your feet 
with a shout that you might give your life for 
Queen and nation. Today Christ calls. AVho 
will take his banner and carry it far on the 

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We Would See Jesus 

battle line of freedom in his name? Who will 
respond?" He reached out his arms to that 
great congregation. No one moved, and no 
answer was returned. He left the pulpit. He 
walked unsteadily down the aisle. When he 
reached the door he was heard to say some- 
thing, and two or three of the younger ministers 
came up to him. He said, "I must go back, I 
must go back to that platform and make yet 
another plea." They tried to dissuade him. 
"I must go back," he said, and tottering be- 
tween the strong arms of those who led him, 
he mounted the pulpit stairs once more, and 
standing there, before a breathless audience, 
he cried, "If there are none here who will vol- 
unteer, then I myself am going back, and let 
India know that there is one old Scotchman 
who bears the flag of the cross of Christ." 

Ah, friends, out on the firing line is where 
you shall see Jesus Christ, and your eyes shall 
behold him and not another. 

"We would see Jesus — for the shadows lengthen 
Across this little landscape of our life; 
We would see Jesus, our weak faith to strengthen 
For the last weariness, the final strife. 

"We would see Jesus — other lights are paling, 
Which for long years we have rejoiced to see; 
The blessings of our pilgrimage are failing, 
We would not mourn them for we go to Thee. 

"We would see Jesus — this is all we're needing, 
Strength, joy, and willingness come with the sight; 
We would see Jesus, dying, risen, pleading, 
Then welcome day, and farewell mortal night ! ' ' 

[93] 



VI 

THE BETRAYER 



il One of you shall betray me." — John 13: SI. 



VI 
THE BETKAYER 

The betrayal of Jesus by Judas has ever lain 
as the heaviest load on the heart of Christian- 
ity. It seems so impossible, so monumentally 
heinous, so outside the realm of total depravity 
even, that after two thousand years, thought is 
still staggering before its awfulness. 

In the beginning of Christianity, her foes 
made much of the betrayal, to condemn her. If 
the Christ himself had no power to keep one of 
his intimate, chosen disciples from such sin, 
then how could he have power over the multi- 
tudes beyond his influence, they exclaimed. I 
have sometimes wondered why the synoptic 
writers and John mentioned the fact at all; 
why they did not try to hold it to themselves 
and bar it from the cold stare of the world. 
They could appreciate what it must mean to 
them and to their Master, and to the cause. It 
was long after the deed that John wrote, when 
the church was just making its way against al- 
most insuperable obstacles. Yet he wrote it 
out clearly and in the blackest colors in which it 
could be painted, — this awful treachery of 
Judas. 

But here is another of those proofs which 
make the Bible so sure, so authoritative. It 

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God Translated 

tells all of the human story as well as all of the 
divine, — always the weakness of mankind, as 
well as its strength and joy. Side by side with 
men's sin, is God's salvation, and the old Book 
is constantly saying, "Though your sins be as 
scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though 
they be red like crimson, they shall be as 
wool." 

We are told that Jesus knew who should 
betray him. Why, then, Judas as one of the 
twelve disciples? The answer is very quickly 
given. Jesus knew the possibilities of Judas, 
and he wanted to give them a trial in exactly 
the same way that he knows the possibilities of 
you and me and wants to give us a trial. Judas 
was the only man from Judea. All the others 
were rough and ready Galilean men. Judas 
brought with him from the south that reverence 
for form and ceremony which came from the 
beautiful temple worship at Jerusalem. He 
brought with him that particular gift of the 
merchant, the buyer and the seller. Jesus knew 
that Judas could develop along the lines of his 
own impulses, and all those impulses in Judas' 
life were the impulses of the trader. He could 
go out and make money where you and I would 
starve. He had the genius to see, to focus, to 
read, to know when to buy and when to sell. 
It was his impulse, and he was selected as the 
one disciple to be the treasurer, the merchant, 
of that little company, because of his particular 
ability along that line. 

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The Betrayer 

Any one of us can develop most rapidly along 
the line of our genuine impulse. Some of us 
can be preachers, and some teachers, and some 
musicians, and some merchants, and some 
home-keepers, — all according to the funda- 
mental impulses and loves and leadings of our 
lives; but every one of us can become strong 
in every other department, if we have a mind to 
put the time, the strength, the consecration, the 
life into it, and pay the price for the success 
which will come. The trouble is, an old doubt 
has lain upon the world like rust, until men and 
women everywhere have come to say, "0, I 
haven't talent for this, or for that; therefore, 
I cannot succeed.' ' This is only the excuse we 
make for our own laziness. Not that we have 
not the genius, but that we are too lazy to open 
up the fountains and let the waters flow and 
become what God knows we might become if 
we would. 

Jesus knew what was in the heart of Judas. 
He understood perfectly well what Judas could 
become when he called him as one of his dis- 
ciples. There stood a strong, young man with 
a limitless future. Will Judas make good? 
Here were all those other disciples. Not one 
of them had the possibilities, when they were 
called to the discipleship, that Judas had! 
Look at Peter! What an apology for a man! 
Look at John! Look at Bartholomew! Look 
at Thomas! Any of them! Judas stands out 
in the beginning as the one man to whom we 

[99] 



God Translated 

would look to climb to the very highest heights 
in disciple ship. But Judas brought along with 
him something that would destroy him if he 
did not watch out. TTith all his splendid possi- 
bilities, Judas brought along covetousness. If 
that grows, Judas, you are doomed! It grew, 
and Judas was destroyed. The man wanted 
to make money. He had the power. He had 
the ability. He said, "If Jesus Christ becomes 
the Messiah of the world, a Master of the Em- 
pire, then I shall become Secretary of the 
Treasury. I will become rich. I will gather the 
gold of the world." And he was the only man 
chosen who could do it. Ah, Judas, when that 
is your first impulse, you are damned before 
you begin. That hated sin grew. 

You recall from the story of Launcelot, when 
they were discussing why each had failed, save 
two, in beholding the Holy Grail, Launcelot 
said, — 

"But in me lived a sin 
So strange, of such a kind, that all of pure, 
Noble, and knightly in me twined and clung 
Round that one sin, until the wholesome flower 
And poisonous grew together, each as each, 
Not to be plucked asunder: and when thy knights 
Sware, I sware -with them only in the hope 
That could I touch or see the Holy Grail 
They might be pluck 'd asunder." 

That sin finally destroyed Launcelot. It was 
that sin of covetousness that finally destroyed 
Judas. 

Now Jesus knew all the possibilities for evil 

[100] 



The Betrayer 

that were in Judas. I have often wondered if 
the Christ called Judas to him and talked to 
him personally. There is not an account in the 
Bible regarding that. I have wondered if now 
and again the Christ did not call each of those 
disciples and talk to them as the Christ might 
talk, about the possibilities and dangers which 
were in the hearts of each. "We know that in 
the public talk of Christ, he was always warn- 
ing his disciples, and it seems to me now, as I 
read them, that he was particularly warning 
Judas. That parable of the net and the fishes, 
— they threw in the net and drew up every kind ; 
the good they would keep, the bad they must 
throw away. Be careful, Judas, you are gath- 
ering in every kind of thought and impulse and 
desire in your life. Be careful that you keep 
only the good, that you throw away the evil! 
That parable of the barren fig tree, — it should 
grow the fruit and then the leaves. The leaves 
appear and of course one in going by would 
look for the fruit. Lo, there is no fruit, only 
show! Cut it down. Why encumbreth it the 
ground? Be careful, Judas, the world looks for 
fruit in your life. Be careful, Judas. 

How those words of Jesus turn to the life of 
Judas as if he were warning him of the dangers 
that lay in his way for his own destruction. 
But Judas did not heed. That sin of covetous- 
ness kept growing. That desire to get every- 
thing for himself developed, until we find him, 
near to the close of those three years of min- 

[101] 



God Translated 

istry, a captive to his sin. One glimpse will 
suffice to reveal all. It is at the banquet in 
Bethany. Mary comes in, breaks the little jar 
of precious nard, and with a most delicate and 
tender touch spreads it over the swollen and 
tired feet of the Christ and wipes those feet 
with the hair of her own head, revealing the 
depths and passions and unspeakable reaches 
of human affection. Mary, uttering for us 
and for all the world love's deepest yearning! 
But, over against it, rises the face of Judas. 
Covetous, heartless, selfish, hypocritical Judas ! 
The very odor of the ointment angers him. 
"Why was not that sold for three hundred 
pence and given to the poor! Why all this 
waste? — he growls. Money! Money! Greed! 
Greed! When ambition, founded only on 
selfishness gives way, covetousness lies there 
as the next lower expression. Thus, greed 
grows. Love dies. Judas betrays. 

At last the three years are over. Tonight 
they are at the table. Judas is ripe for his 
own destruction. Sin conceived has brought 
forth death. Jesus knew the betrayal. He 
knew it when they entered the room. He 
knew it when he sat down beside Judas at 
the table. 

0, the infinite love of Jesus for Judas! He 
would sit next to Judas at the table in that last 
hour! Perhaps, perhaps he could break that 
awful spirit even yet. Note carefully the at- 
tempt. As they did eat, Jesus said, "One of 

[102] 



The Betrayer 

you shall betray me." "What," said Judas to 
himself in his heart, "does he know me? I will 
confess. Already my plans are laid." 

"Who is it?" ask the disciples. Jesus an- 
swers, "He that dippeth his hand with me in 
the dish, the same shall betray me. ' ' But, there 
are three or four dishes. Who can it be? The 
disciples could not tell, but the circle is nar- 
rowed. Judas can feel that it is focusing more 
and more upon him. Judas must feel that it is 
he, and there is forced from him those awful 
words, "Lord, is it I?" 

John turns to ask of the Christ, "Lord, who 
is it?" and Jesus answers in a whisper that 
only John could know, " He to whom I shall give 
the sop," and he handed it to Judas. As Jesus 
handed the sop to Judas, he looks him in the 
eyes. Yes, Judas, I know, and I know it is you 
who shall betray me. That was said only with 
the eyes, and then, in a voice that all at the 
table could hear, he said to Judas, "What thou 
doest, do quickly." The disciples interpreted 
those words to mean that Jesus had asked 
Judas to get some provision possibly for the 
supper which was now being held. When Jesus 
thus spoke, Judas left the table and went out 
into the night. But he went out to betray. He 
went out to those rulers who treated him as a 
contemptible betrayer. They had covenanted 
with him for money, but they made him ask that 
awful question, "What will you give me?" 
Contemptible as were those rulers, they had the 

[103] 



God Translated 

deepest contempt for this betrayer. Earth or 
hell has no scorn so smiting as the scorn for the 
base betrayer. 

What must have been Judas' loneliness as he 
left the room that night ! There was no one in 
heaven or on earth to whom he could appeal. 
His friends were in that room yonder. If ever 
he had possessed the love of woman, that must 
have been blighted and blasted. The rulers 
despised him. He had sold his Lord. How the 
blackness of darkness gathered, as insanely he 
pressed forward to his fearful deed and doom ! 

When, next morning, he saw the awful suf- 
fering of Jesus, and doubtless caught one look 
from those forgiving eyes, then his soul was 
rent asunder in horror. Blackness, darkness, 
frozen fear, lurid lightnings, fearful thunders 
played about him! The money! It burned! 
He takes it back. He hands it to those priests 
saying, "I have sinned in that I have betrayed 
innocent blood; I cannot keep the money.' ' 
They answer with a leer, "What is that to us? 
See thou to it." But the money! It sticks to 
his hands ! It will not let go ! Pieces cling to 
the fingers, to the palms of his hands ! He tries 
to be rid of it. It clings ! He flings it to the 
pavement and, rushing out, hurls himself head- 
long into those swirling, sucking, pitiless waters 
of death, and they draw him down, down, down, 
to the awful hell of blackness and despair he 
had prepared for his own soul. 

[104] 



The Betrayer 
To Betray Is the Blackest of Crimes. 

We can forgive the open blow of a declared 
enemy. There you are on guard, or should be. 
You understood he was an enemy. I respect a 
true enemy. There is a "fierce joy that war- 
riors feel in foemen worthy of their steel." 
But what will you do with a person who uses 
the knowledge he has gained from the intimate 
friendship of years to basely betray you? 
What shall we say of those who deliberately 
knife in the back and in the dark? Jesus cried 
for the people who were crucifying him, say- 
ing, "They know not what they do." But 
Judas knew what he was doing. Deliberately 
he had planned. All the confidence reposed in 
him as one of the inner group of Christ's 
friends was prostituted to his awful sin of 
betrayal. 

In the category of sin, treachery is marked 
as the blackest. John does not deal gently with 
Judas. He plainly brands him as a traitor. 
We all must forgive much, — but treachery! — 
What shall be done with it? How shall we treat 
one who uses the knowledge he gains as a friend 
to betray the friend to enemies? I can forgive 
the man whose weakness leads him to sin, even 
some of those social sins at which people hold 
up their hands in such horror. I can forgive 
his weakness, his betrayal of himself, and 
gently lead him back to the ways of righteous- 
ness and truth. But the man who betrays the 

[105] 



God Translated 

love and confidence of a friend, who deliber- 
ately strikes in the dark, who calmly works out 
his plans of destruction, — why the adulterer, 
the impulsive murderer, the liar, the thief, are 
gentlemen in comparison with such a beast. 

You have noted with what profound skill 
Jesus eliminated Judas from the supper that 
night. Even Jesus could not talk as he did in 
the fourteenth of John, or ordain the Last 
Supper, with the awful traitor sitting beside 
him. Yet, by no word or sign did he reveal the 
betrayal to those disciples. If Jesus had un- 
masked Judas before those rough and ready 
Galileans that night, I doubt if he would have 
left the room alive. After Judas goes out to 
betray, Jesus speaks those eternal words of 
comfort and guidance as recorded in the four- 
teenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth chapters of 
John, utters that marvelous prayer as recorded 
in the seventeenth chapter, ordains the Last 
Supper, then sings a hymn with them and goes 
out to the Garden of Gethsemane where at 
midnight Judas finds him and betrays hiin with 
a kiss. 

Environment Does Not Save People. 

Thistles and thorns and weeds grow together 
in the same garden with flowers and fruits and 
vegetables. The same rain and the same sun 
cause both to grow. Environment does not 
make the weeds, or does not make the fruits. 

[106] 



The Betrayer 

What is in the weed shall come up and bear 
fruit, and the same sun and the same rain shall 
call it forth. Judas was in the choicest garden 
in all the world. There was an opportunity 
for him to grow under the rain and under the 
sun and under the gladness of the smile of 
Jesus Christ, until he became the kindest char- 
acter that the world has ever known. But he 
became the worst under that very influence. 
His sin grows blacker as his light grows 
brighter. 

Belonging to a church, living in a Christian 
community, doesn't save a man or a woman. 
Judas lived in that precious, most precious, of 
communions, and Judas became the blackest 
thief, and the worst robber, and the vilest crim- 
inal that the world has ever known. Why, in 
the beautiful Christian home, is the same story ! 
Some of the worst reprobates have come out 
of the most beautiful and cultured homes. 
Judas, out of the friendship and the love and 
the companionship of Jesus Christ, became a 
traitor. How could it be ! I could wish that I 
might have walked with Christ. I could wish 
that I might have known him intimately in the 
flesh. I think my life must have taken on an 
upward power and must have been lifted to the 
higher levels of such a character as he. Earth 
and Heaven, and ail the eternities, could not 
have compared with the privilege of being in 
the company and learning from Jesus Christ. 
But all Judas Iscariot could get out of Jesus 

[107] 



God Translated 

Christ was nineteen dollars, the price of 
betrayal. 

There are men and women in Massachusetts' 
— in Brockton — who are getting education, self- 
culture, manhood, womanhood, Christian char- 
acter, future promise, out of these homes, these 
churches, this glorious country of ours. There 
are men and women in Massachusetts — in 
Brockton — who are getting only meanness, the 
leprosy of sin, the blackness of darkness of 
death ; who sell themselves for a mess of pot- 
tage and betray all that is holy in mother love, 
church love, heavenly love. In return, they 
get the fiendish laugh of devils who gloat over 
such fools' deceptions. 

Why Bid Judas Betray Christ? 

John says, — the devil put it into his heart. 
It was too black a job for any other murderer. 
But who is this devil so much talked about in 
Scripture and out of Scripture? If we turn to 
the twelfth chapter of the Book of Eevelation, 
the ninth verse, we shall find a group of names 
that will help us to answer our questions. 
In this passage of Scripture, John uses 
four names, — the " great dragon," the "old 
serpent," the "devil," "Satan." 

The chief characteristic of the dragon is its 
mystery. Mythology and imagination have 
painted the dragon as a dread beast with fire 
issuing from its mouth, and having fearful 

[108] 



The Betrayer 

claws for destruction. That is sin, — mysteri- 
ous, fearful, full of fire, with claws that tear, 
no matter whether it be babe, or boy, or woman, 
or love. The " great dragon" would burn, and 
claw, and destroy. 

The chief characteristic of the serpent is its 
silence, its stealth. The serpent crawls and 
glides in the grass, its color changing to its 
surroundings. It coils, and waits, and strikes 
its deadly fangs and glides away again. Or, it 
seizes its victim and crushes by its awful pres- 
sure. That is sin, — it crawls, and hides, 
and glides, and strikes, and poisons, and 
crushes. 

The word "devil" means something thrown 
to entice and catch. It is like throwing seed to 
entice the birds, or a net to entrap them. The 
devil then becomes the enticer. That is sin, — . 
enticing, alluring, entrapping. It throws the 
seeds of physical pleasures, mental excitement, 
spiritual elation even, and while the revellers 
are lost in exuberation, nets its victims and 
destroys them. 

Satan means deceiver. Satan stands for 
lying, cheating, defrauding, blinding to all that 
is right, turning pure streams into cesspools 
of filth and poisoning every true impulse with 
death. That is sin. It deceives. It lies to 
everybody. It promises all the kingdoms of 
this world to those who will fall down and wor- 
ship it. Then it stamps the life out of those 
foolish victims who kneel. 

[109] 



God Translated 

This then is that monster dragon, serpent, 
devil, Satan, that put it in the heart of Judas 
to betray his Lord. It was that combination 
of evil and attractiveness, and light and fire, 
that induced Judas to betray. 0, don't be so 
circumscribed in thinking as to tie up that in 
one bundle and make it one being going about 
the world! It was that that allured Judas. 
It was that that Jesus Christ meant in the clos- 
ing of the fourteenth chapter of John when he 
said, "And when that shall come to me, it shall 
find nothing in me that it can attract because 
sin can have no power in me. I have risen 
above it, and sin shall not allure me to destruc- 
tion.' ' This is just another way of personify- 
ing that awful force, calling it a person, calling 
it the devil, when we simply mean that in us 
are the seeds and around us are the elements, 
the rain and the sunshine, that make them 
grow, and if we allow to grow in our hearts 
those seeds of evil, then we shall get the crop. 
It may be forty-fold, or sixty-fold, or a hundred- 
fold. 

This, then, was the allurement of Judas. A 
desire for wealth and position grew into 
covetousness, and greed generated a hate for 
all things pure and holy. At last Judas' heart 
was so full of greed and hate and self, that he 
could even commit the sin that stands as the 
blackest, most heinous, most awful sin that ever 
can be recorded, — the sin of treachery to and 
betrayal of his Friend and Lord. 

[110] 



The Betrayer 

Two great lessons confront us. 

Association cannot save us. Only thinking 
rightly and doing righteously can save us. 
Mother's prayers cannot save me; God cannot 
save me ; nothing can save me except the sur- 
render of my life to the will of the good God 
who will guide me in righteousness. 

Thistles, and thorns, and poisonous weeds 
grow by the same sun and rain, and in the same 
garden with fruits, and vegetables, and flowers. 
The seed of the thing planted determines what 
the growth and crop will be. The seed of sin 
was in Judas. It grew. The crop was that 
blackest crime at which even hell shudders. 
The seed of righteousness was in John. It 
grew. The crop was that most blessed life, 
which shall forever shed its radiance over the 
pathway of men and across the highways of 
eternity. Both lives were under the smile and 
presence of Jesus Christ. Each life developed 
what each life planted and nourished. 

So, in our midst, grow these precious lives. 
Here is our church with all its offerings of 
social, intellectual, and spiritual blessings. 
Here are our schools with heartiest invitation 
to culture and refinement and power. Here is 
our community with its loves, and books, and 
pleasures, and homes. Here grow our people. 
But, the horrible difference ! Some are grow- 
ing like Judas. Some are growing like John. 
Some are growing like Mary. Some are grow- 
ing like Sophia. Some are growing pure, true, 
[ill] 



God Translated 

righteous, Godlike in purpose and action. 
Some are growing sordid, and sinful, and vile. 
"Be not deceived,' ' God is not laughed to 
scorn. Whatsoever grows in our hearts shall 
bear its fruit, and that fruit shall be a John or 
a Judas. 



[112] 



VII 
ON THE WAY HOME 



"How 'know we the way?" — John 14: 5. 



VII 
ON THE WAY HOME 

Christianity has no possession so precious as 
the memory of that week when Jesus stood face 
to face with death. Matchless as he appears in 
every action and deed of his life, he yet, be it 
reverently said, never appears so regal, so sur- 
passingly great, so unapproachably grand as 
during those days of his closing earthly career. 
All that was deepest in the soul, most tender 
in love, most human in sympathy, most divine 
in character, was poured out with such a lavish 
prodigality that it immerses us, sinks us in an 
infinite ocean of light and love. But, when we 
come to that last night, and they are all to- 
gether in the upper room, he seems to shine 
forth in a blaze of moral and spiritual splendor, 
such that the world is still dazed by its light. 
His soul overflows in an indescribable tender- 
ness as he abandons himself to the love of his 
friends. He utters the deepest yearning of his 
being. He speaks the thoughts which lie at the 
very fountain-head of inspiration. He is the 
Christ, the Son of the living God, speaking out 
of the very heart of God himself. 

Judas has gone out into the night and to his 
treachery. Until he goes, the Christ cannot be 

[115] 



God Translated 

free. So, by wonderful tact, he eliminates 
Judas from the number at the table, without 
exposing his treachery to the other disciples. 
As soon as Judas is gone, Jesus finds his soul 
flowing free. He begins to speak to them those 
marvelous words in the 14th, 15th, and 16th 
chapters of John. Nowhere in Gospel history 
are there words so tender, revelations so holy, 
and feelings so sacred as here. What can 
equal the beauty, the tenderness, the scope, 
the eternal assurance of this 14th chapter! 

We have some lovely and inspiring things 
in literature, in song, in art. The old Bible is 
rich beyond words in such expressions. The 
closing words of Moses in Deuteronomy: the 
calm, prophetic call of Isaiah in the fifty- 
third chapter: the sparkling fountains of the 
Psalms, and that sweetest of all, the twenty- 
third: the love lyric of St. Paul in I Corin- 
thians, the thirteenth chapter, — these are lovely 
with an eternal loveliness of their own. But, 
of all words spoken, or thoughts expressed, in 
all time or for all eternity, the fourteenth 
chapter of John stands out as the super- 
eminent cheer and comfort of the world. How 
the martyrs drank at its spring! How the 
saints fed at its table! How tired and faint 
children of earth have pillowed their heads 
here until the ache was gone, and courage was 
restored ! 

One of the ineradicable memories of my life 
is the family circle, the glow of the lamp, the 

[116] 



On the Way Home 

hush of the evening, and my father sitting there 
reading, — "Let not your heart be troubled" — 
the voice shakes now and again — "ye believe 
in God" — (it was always the old version) — "be- 
lieve also in me. In my Father's house are 
many mansions. If it were not so, I would have 
told you; for I go to prepare a place for you," 
— and up that shining road he went and on to 
that Heavenly City of eternal peace. 

As in all his other teachings, Jesus used a 
familiar picture by which to make his meaning 
clear. In the old tribal days, the leader, or 
sheik, of the tribe kept his children and families 
together. When a son was married, the father 
would prepare a tent next to his own for the 
son and his bride, and when another son was 
married, another tent was prepared next his, 
and thus the sons brought their brides to the 
father's house, and with their families lived 
and loved and grew. All were tabernacled with 
the father at home. Jesus used this familiar 
fact to describe our Heavenly Father's care, 
and he said, "In my Father's house are many 
abodes: if it were not so, I would have told 
you ; for I go to prepare a place for you. And 
if I go and prepare a place for you, I come 
again and will receive you unto myself." 

We are on the way home as was Jesus that 
night in which he was speaking; as have been 
all of earth's children in all the centuries, for 

' ' Our hearts, though stout and brave, 
Still, like muffled drums, are beating 
Funeral marches to the grave." 

[117] 



God Translated 

A beautiful world this iu which we live. Lovely- 
flowers bloom here. Gay are the orchards and 
meadows. Grand are the mountains and seas. 
Beautiful are human faces. Glorious is human 
living. But, — we are moving onward, we are 
marching away. 

"Drum-taps! Drum-taps! Who is it marching, 
Marching past in the night? Ah, hark, 
Draw your curtains aside and see 
Endless ranks of the stars o 'er-arching, 
Endless ranks of an army marching, 
Marching out of the measureless dark, 
Marching away to Eternity. 

' ' See the gleam of the white, sad faces, 
Moving steadily, row on row, 
Marching away to their hopeless wars: 
Drum-taps, drum-taps, where are they marching? 
Terrible, beautiful, human faces, 
Common as dirt, but softer than snow, 
Coarser than clay, but calm as the stars. " 

What infinite numbers have gone before! 
What infinite numbers are now going! You 
are going ! I am going ! All are going ! 

1 ' I 'm but a stranger here, 
Heaven is my home: 
Earth is a desert drear, 
Heaven is my home: 
Danger and sorrow stand 
Bound me on every hand: 
Heaven is my Fatherland, 
Heaven is my home. ' ' 

We Have an Abiding Home. 

Jesus told us so. "In my Father's house are 
many abodes : I go to prepare a place for you. ' ' 
Up to the time Jesus spoke those words, the 
whole question of the future life was very hazy 

[118] 



On the Way Home 

and uncertain. The Old Testament has little 
or no definite teachings on the subject. But as 
soon as Jesus Christ had spoken, life took on a 
new meaning. There was a way of assurance 
to an abiding place. The Ascension marked the 
way home. Instantly the disciples took on that 
great, new truth. Stephen, as they stoned him, 
looked up steadfastly to behold the new home 
into which he was going. Peter caught its 
gleam from afar and fought for the stairway 
that would lead him home. Paul and Barnabas 
prayed and sang praises in the night, but un- 
like Jacob of old who only had dreamed, they 
now see the ladder that leads from earth to 
Heaven. Why, from that hour to this, the way 
home has been known and loved. Saints and 
martyrs have gone gladly up that shining way. 
I see them go. Familiar forms and faces are 
there now. ' ' Onward they go, and still we hear 
them singing.' ' 

Jesus Christ is preparing the home for us. 
If a guest we love is coming to our home there 
is a keen joy in preparing to receive him. A 
favorite picture is hung where his eye may see 
it and his heart be made glad. Favorite flowers 
are arranged where they will speak a welcome 
that words cannot speak. An easy-chair is 
wheeled to the window and books are near for 
a quiet reading and rest. "We prepare for the 
coming of our loved ones. Said Jesus Christ, 
"I go to prepare a place for you." With what 
care will he make ready those mansions in 

[119] 



God Translated 

Heaven, and with what joy will he welcome our 
coming when our life's tasks are over and our 
life's work is done! 

The race believes in an abiding home. 
Fundamental impulses of the race are great 
primal truths. From earliest records we find 
this belief. All down the centuries it has been 
a beautiful light. Alfred Tennyson expresses 
it in language of longing, — 

' ' Thou wilt not leave us in the dust, 
Thou madest man, he knows not why, 
He thinks he was not born to die: 
But Thou hast made him: Thou art just." 

Not only does the race demand it, but you 
and I demand it. There is not one of you here 
who does not, deep down in his own soul, de- 
mand that future and abiding home into which 
he may go. If I came this morning to say to 
you men and women, — I know there is no future 
beyond this, and no life when you have entered 
into your grave, — as one you would rise to de- 
clare, "Then life is absolutely useless, and the 
quicker the end, the better." But, said Jesus, 
"I go to prepare a place for you." 

' ' Swift to its close, 
Ebbs out life's little day, 
Earth's joys grow dim, 
Its glories pass away: 
Change and decay 
In all around I 866," 

and then comes the heart-throb, — 

"O, Thou who changest not, 
Abide with me." 

[ 120 ] 



On the Way Home 
And we are conscious of his abiding place. 

Jesus Christ Is the Way to that Home. 

He is the official guide. He said to those dis- 
ciples, "Whither I go, ye know the way," but 
Thomas answers him, "Lord, we know not 
whither thou goest: how know we the way?" 
Jesus answered, "I am the way." He is the 
guide. You cannot get through save by his 
guidance. 

Germany has been saying to the neutral na- 
tions, "Sail your ships by such a course and 
up to such a place and there take on a German 
pilot. If you do not, your ship will come into 
the mine fields and ship and cargo and crew will 
be destroyed." England has been saying to 
neutral nations, "Sail your ships by such a 
course to such a point and there take on an 
English pilot. Mine fields and dangers of 
every sort are in the way. You must have an 
official pilot if you shall come in safety to the 
port you seek. ' ' 

Jesus says, "I am the way." That is why 
we sing, — 

' ' Jesus Saviour, pilot me 
Over life's tempestuous sea, 
Unknown waves before me roll 
Hiding rock and treacherous shoal, 
Chart and compass come from Thee, 
Jesus Saviour, pilot me. ' ' 

People are trying to get in through other ways. 
Many will not take the pilot. They enter the 

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God Translated 

mine fields of sin and are destroyed. No one 
ever yet got to Heaven save by the guidance of 
Jesus Christ, and no one ever will, for there is 
no other name under Heaven given among men 
whereby we can be saved, except in and through 
the name of Jesus Christ. 

He is the daily companion. "Lo, I am with 
you always." Some of life's richest experi- 
ences have been those in days when I have been 
privileged to have as a companion some, one of 
earth's great souls. I think of the great, and 
then widely known, Dr. Benjamin Hayes, than 
whom there was no deeper, prof ounder, or more 
Godly man. I think of Dr. Stuckenberg, that 
wonderful German sociologist who came into 
our home in the years gone by, spending weeks 
with us and giving intellectual stimulus toward 
a higher life. I think of Dr. Borden P. Bowne, 
that giant among giants in philosophy, as he 
became to me a father and friend. I think of 
others, — Dr. Josiah Strong, Dr. Francis E. 
Clark, and that great soul who went home from 
the deck of the ship that was bound to his own 
English home, Dr. C. Sylvester Home, — yes, 
numbers of the great men and the great women 
whose lives have shed their light upon my own, 
until my own must be brighter because of asso- 
ciation with them. It is one of the most price- 
less treasures we may have, — the association 
of the great men and women of the world. 

But what are they in comparison with the 
opportunity of associating with Jesus Christ, 

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On the Way Home 

of walking with him, of talking with him, of 
laughing with him, of crying with him ! Oh, the 
privilege of the companionship of Jesus Christ ! 
Our lives get narrow and cramped. We lose 
our tempers. We fuss, and fret, and fume. 
The mole-hills enlarge into mountains and the 
motes become beams. We grow gnarled, and 
wrinkled, and sour, and crabbed. Deep lines 
are grooved by care on the face, while the heart 
shrivels up, and the shoulders bend to the same 
process of living. Oh, shame, shame, shame, 
when we have the possible companionship of 
Jesus Christ to keep our thoughts large, our 
faces smiling, our hearts sweet ! Shame to that 
life which takes on the sordid, the mean, the 
narrow, when all eternity opens wide before us, 
and the sweetest companionship of the ages is 
ours for the asking ! 

He is the revealer of the Father. "He that 
hath seen me, hath seen the Father.' ' Judas, 
not Iscariot, instantly answered, "Lord, what 
is come to pass that thou wilt manifest thyself 
unto us, and not unto the world V That is 
what you men and women may be asking this 
morning. How is it that Jesus Christ will 
reveal himself to some and not to others ? 

I stand or sit by my telephone desk and talk. 
You cannot hear the one who is speaking to me, 
but I hear. I smile ; I laugh ; I grow serious ; 
I speak sorrowfully or gladly. What a ridicu- 
lous thing it is to watch a person who is talking 
over a telephone ! I know of nothing more ab- 

[123] 



God Translated 

surd than to stand up against the side of the 
house and talk into a hole in the wall ! If we 
were not accustomed to it, we would surely 
think that somebody had been bereft of his 
senses. But the fact is, I am speaking with 
somebody. I have the electric connection with 
some one. I can speak and he can hear. He 
can speak and I can hear. But you, sitting in 
the room, cannot hear because you have not the 
connection. 

I stand here this morning to speak with Jesus 
Christ. I look into his face. You call it prayer 
and hide under the word. No, there is no hid- 
ing. I am speaking with him, and I hear him 
speak with me, and because the spiritual world 
is even more wonderfully developed than our 
physical world, I can see him while I speak 
with him. How is it that he will manifest him- 
self to me and not to you ? Only that I have the 
connection and can hear and can see. Now, 
Jesus Christ does not beget hopes he cannot 
satisfy. Every word he spoke has been ful- 
filled. Every hope he awoke has been met. He 
answered Judas, "If a man love me, he will 
keep my word: and my Father will love him, 
and we will come unto him and make our abode 
with him. ' ' The connection will be maintained. 

We Are on the Way Home. 

That night, as he spoke those marvelous 
words, "Let not your heart be troubled," and 
called them to such heights of joy, what about 

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On the Way Home 

his own heart? What about his own need of 
sympathy? Tonight at midnight the betrayer 
shall come slinking out of the gate of Jerusalem 
and down across the Kedron valley, piloting the 
soldiers and the hirelings of the high-priest, 
that he may betray his Lord and Master with 
a kiss ! Tomorrow shall come the cross and the 
agony and the tomb ! The young blood of Jesus 
Christ ran free. He was only thirty-three years 
of age. The horror of the surrender of himself 
to the dark swirl of death was even greater to 
him than to you or to me. But he was on the 
way home. 

Ah, what a way was that! All that should 
be packed into the next twenty hours will be 
the theme of men and women and children for 
ages and ages, forever and forever. He could 
speak so truly and reveal so plainly the way 
by which we all should come to our Father's 
house, because he knew the way home. 

We are on the way home. Here we dwell 
today in these clay bodies, but we are liable to 
be evicted at any hour. 

' ' Our years are like the shadows, 
On sunny hills that lie, 
Or grasses in the meadows 
That blossom but to die: 
A sleep, a dream, a story, 
By strangers quickly told, 
An unremaining glory 
Of things that soon are old." 

Loved ones have gone over to that other life. 
They call to us. Our ears are dull. We cannot 

[125] 



God Translated 

hear. Alfred Tennyson's soul reaches out until 
in the dim distances he feels for the hand of 
his great friend, Arthur Hallam, and somehow 
through the mist and mystery and darkness 
and yearning, he seems to hear Hallam saying 
to him, — 

' ' I stand upon this silent shore : 
Thy spirit up to mine can reach, 
But in dear words of human speech 
We two commune no more." 

But the hour came when Tennyson spoke again 
in the "dear words of human speech." The 
hour is coming when I, when you, when all of 
us who have followed him along the way that 
leads home, shall speak again, shall speak to 
loved ones gone, and to loved ones coming, in 
that language that knows no nationality and 
with that voice that knows no boundaries. 0, 
that will be joy unspeakable and full of glory! 

Do you know anything of the joy of home 
coming after your first years of absence? 
Never shall I forget the joy of that first re- 
turn. I was on the steamer. The afternoon 
sun was brilliant ; no land was to be seen. We 
careened away over the rolling blue. My heart 
was impatient. I would speed faster than the 
speeding ship. I went up to the bow of the 
boat and looked down at the waters before, 
and then far away on the trackless deep into 
that horizon so dim, so far, and I said, "Some- 
where on that horizon line, far back of where 

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On the Way Home 

the eye can see, is the homeland, and honle. ,, 
I watched as the sun went down, and the long 
shadows gathered. The sea became lonely as 
night was near. I went out into the night. 
The stars were bright. The whitecaps now and 
again appeared strangely distinct, and the call 
of the waves had a weird and lonely sound. 
But, somewhere out yonder through the night 
and through the sea and beyond my sight is 
home, and I shall come to it, please God, ere 
long. I went out again in the morning when 
the sun was shining, and, lo, there were the 
headlands, indistinct, dim, but growing larger. 
Yes, and there is the lighthouse. The light has 
gone out for the greater light is shining. 
Hark! Over the seas, I hear the call of the 
harbor bell. We are coming in : we are coming 
in. The headlands are slipping past on either 
side. The harbor is full for the tide is flood. 
Look ! Yonder is the dock. I can see the faces 
of those who wait. But why these misty eyes 
when I am coming home! Ere long the ropes 
are thrown and the ship is made fast, and I am 
home after these years of separation. 

Ah, dear friends, we are on our way home. 
Out beyond the horizon line is the Homeland. 
Jesus Christ is the pilot. He shows the way. 
If the storms come too heavily, he will speak 
to them and they will be still. If the quarter- 
master fails at the wheel, he will take control. 
The ship will come in, and some morning the 
headlands will be slipping by, and the bells will 

[127] 



God Translated 

be ringing, and they will throw the lines ashore, 
and we will be in the eternal life. I know many 
to whom I will shout. I am almost calling them 
now. I am home! I am home! I am home, 
eternally home, because Jesus Christ has made 
the way open and has piloted me home. 

' ' Many loved ones have I in that beautiful land, 
They are waiting and watching for me : 
And they beckon me o 'er to that bright, happy shore 
Where forever in glory I '11 be. ' ' 



[128] 



VIII 
A GAMBLE FOE A COAT 



"They said, therefore, one to another, — Let us not rend it 
but cast lots for it, whose it shall be. ' '—John 19 : 24. 



VIII 
A GAMBLE FOR A COAT 

Nero fiddled while Eome burned! Philip 
toyed with anagrams and puzzled over childish 
rhymes while his great Spanish Empire was 
falling to pieces around him! Charles I of 
England wove theological ropes of sand while 
Cromwell was striking his mighty blows for 
England's freedom! 

Destinies of men and nations have been 
risked on the throw of dice. This present Ger- 
man war is a gamble with empires at stake. 
Prussia's mathematical calculations and pre- 
cisions left no place for the higher elements in 
diplomacy. She staked her all on the fierce 
rush of what she considered an irresistible 
army. Her throw was fatal. Today she is 
rimmed around with fire, and steel, and slowly, 
awfully, but surely, must be beaten to the 
ground. 

Pilate staked his all on a throw. His posi- 
tion, as governor, was tottering. He had made 
himself a person non gratia with the people of 
Judea. He had opened the sluice gates of his 
destruction by bribe taking, abuse of power, 
and false government. The people had a case 
against him, and the decision of Caesar would be 

[131] 



God Translated 

his downfall. The problem to Pilate was this, 
— defy the people and lose his governorship, 
or placate the people and save his power. He 
was not big enough to understand that he 
who compromises is lost when the principles 
at stake are the fundamental principles of 
righteousness. 

The scene of conflict between Pilate and 
Jesus, as pictured in this chapter, is very- 
striking. The brutal and domineering gov- 
ernor, overmastered by the sense of his own 
power and importance, speaks sharply and 
fiercely to Christ. Christ stands there, quiet 
and calm, looking him in the eye, but returning 
no answer. Pilate is startled, as any such 
brutish nature is, and he cries out, "Speakest 
thou not unto me? Knowest thou not that I 
have power to release thee and have power to 
crucify thee?" The calm lips of that strange 
prisoner moved, and he answers as quietly, 
"Thou wouldest have no power against me, 
except it were given thee from above. ' ' There 
has been many a fool like Pilate disconcerted 
and defeated by the quiet control of one who is 
supposed to be a victim, but, by that control, 
becomes a victor. 

Those soldiers to whom the clothes of Jesus 
fell as a prize when he was put upon the cross, 
found themselves gambling for his coat. They 
would crucify anybody for the sake of his 
clothes, as Pilate would condemn anybody for 
the sake of his governorship. 

[132] 



A Gamble for a Coat 

The crosses were up. The three men hung 
there. This strange young Galilean is in the 
center. The clothes of the thieves are passed 
by evidently as of little worth, but that seam- 
less coat of Christ's, — that is of value. "Let - 
us not rend it," they said, "but cast lots for it, 
whose it shall be." I have wondered whose 
hands made that coat. I wonder if Mary, or 
Martha, or his mother had woven the cloth and 
shaped the garment. I wonder what love was 
stitched into the seams, and what hopes went 
with the giving of the garment. But the sol- 
diers gambled for the coat, sitting there apart, 
while Heaven was looking on and the earth 
was trembling, and Jesus Christ, the Saviour 
of the world was dying. They gambled for a 
coat while before their eyes was transpiring 
the central event in all history. Ages and ages 
had led up to this very hour. Ages and ages 
will stretch away from this hour. This hour 
will be the central scene forever. More eyes 
will turn to that cross than earth's millions can 
enumerate. More tears of gratitude to him will 
fall than the vials of God can contain. But, 
forever and forever, will those soldiers sit there 
gambling for a coat while the Son of God dies 
for the sins of the world. 

The scene is typical of that strange char- 
acteristic which is found in all virile peoples, — 
namely, the pleasure and excitement of taking 
a chance. It is a strange characteristic. Men 
and women of the virile races do take chances, 

[133] 



God Translated 

and there is a certain exhilaration in measuring 
one's mental alertness against what he knows 
to be the chances of death. The one who makes 
a noble endeavor for a righteous purpose, 
knowing the dangers he faces, is a hero. The 
one who gambles with death is a fool. We have 
them a plenty, — those who face death in a 
righteous cause. The marvel of human nature 
is that so many of the untried, the uneducated, 
the common, out of our common humanity, rise 
to those wonderful heights of self-sacrifice. 
We have them a plenty, — those heroes who wait 
their opportunity. But, we have them a plenty 
also, — those fools who gamble with death. You 
find them in the aeroplanes : you find them in 
the automobiles : you find them in the operating 
rooms: you find them in every walk and at 
every corner of life. 

Take a Case of a Whole People — Bar abbas 
or Jesus. 

Suppose another being, with an intelligence 
like our own, yet a stranger to our human char- 
acteristics, should come upon this platform this 
morning and give me an opportunity to ques- 
tion him. "Sir," I would say, "let me put 
before you this problem. Here are two men, 
one of whom we shall kill and one save. The 
one is a murderer : his hands are red with the 
life-blood of his victims. No person, no life is 
safe where he is free. He is an enemy to soci- 

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A Gamble for a Coat 

ety. He is a brigand in morals. His foot-steps 
are the echo of terror and evil. The other is 
a clean, strong, commanding man. No fault 
can be found with him save that he is a critic 
of his generation. He looks deeply into the 
hearts and lives of men and women, and sees 
certain wrongs there. He sees that wrong is 
covered up often by religious practices. Men 
have made the most precious thing in the world 
a cloak for their sins. Jesus looks through the 
cloak. He looks into the heart of his genera- 
tion. He says, 'You are wrong. Cease from 
your evil, all ye who make long prayers in the 
public and then go to steal widows ' houses and 
orphans' incomes.' He has been a critic of his 
generation, but he loves his generation, and 
seeks to lift it out of that evil condition into 
which it has come, that it may become the 
generation its possibilities suggest. Sir, which 
of these two men shall the nation liberate?" 

That strange being, not understanding the 
characteristics of humanity, would probably 
make answer something like this, "Why, sir, 
to state your proposition answers it. Surely, 
you shall confine to imprisonment, or even to 
death, according to your law, the one who mur- 
dered. You must do it for the sake of society. 
You must do it because the contagion of his 
evil spirit will spread beyond the reach of 
where he himself goes, and a large area of 
people will soon be affected because of his free- 
dom. Surely, you shall confine him. And, sir, 

[135] 



God Translated 

your critic is your greatest friend. The man 
who criticises you in love and for your own 
good is your choice friend. He can see where 
you are weak. He wants to make you strong. 
He strips from you your sophistries and lays 
bare your weaknesses. Confine your murderer 
and release your friend." 

But the people cried out, "Away with him, 
away with him : crucify him, crucify him, and 
release unto us Barabbas, the murderer.' ' 
They were blinded with passion. They had 
divorced their reason. 

Strange humanity! Strange characteristics, 
these, in the human heart ! Strange upbubbling 
of a something in the breast of the Hebrew 
nation that would call for the destruction of its 
friend and the liberation of its enemy! The 
nation gambled on Barabbas and Jesus. It 
took its murderer and slew its Saviour. 

That mob is typical of countless individuals 
who thus have chosen the wrong for the right. 
Some years ago I called a thoughtless young 
woman to me to show her very clearly whither 
such conduct as hers was leading her. I re- 
vealed the road to sin, the agony to come, and, 
most awful of all, the destruction of her own 
real self. Plainly, faithfully, did I tell her what 
life would do for her if she continued in the 
path that now was attracting her feet, and what 
life would do for her did she turn to the right, 
maintain an unblemished character, and give 
herself to the loyal support of Jesus Christ and 

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A Gamble for a Coat 

his work. She turned from me with a promise 
to be true, but the deadly allurement of sin 
called her. She yielded to that allurement and 
followed the pathway of sin. She is alive today, 
in another city. If I speak to her, there is a 
brazenness of front that brings the tears to my 
eyes because I know. There is a haughtiness 
of expression and dare that says to me frankly, 
— yes, you know and I know, but I do not 
care, — when away down in her soul she does 
care. She has crucified her Saviour and lib- 
erated her murderer and is going straight to 
her own death. It is characteristic of so many 
thousands of men and women this day, as it has 
been in the days which are gone. 

The Case of Personal Choices. 

Take a story from the chapter read. Nico- 
demus must choose. Shall it be the Sanhedrin 
or Christ? Shall it be worldly position or 
eternal truth? 

If that stranger from the other world still 
sat here, and I had the privilege of asking him 
another question, I would say, ' * Sir, let me give 
you a second proposition. Here is my worldly 
position. I think I am right in that position. I 
try to live up to the light I have. I am, how- 
ever, wise enough to know that my brain can- 
not compass all the eternal hinterlands of truth. 
As far as I can see, 1 am doing right, but I 
know there is an infinite knowledge beyond me. 

[137] 



God Translated 

I am proud of my life and attainments. I want 
to live true to my tasks. Now here comes a 
man who can lead me out into those hinter- 
lands of truth. I know new life will open. 
But my present living will then seem narrow. 
I shall have to move out into wider fields. I 
shall have to leave this business. I shall have 
to leave behind many friends. If I become a 
follower of this man, I know I must grow 
away from much that I now love. Y/hich 
shall I choose, — my own littleness or his 
bigness?" 

I think the stranger would answer me in- 
stantly, "Sir, to state your proposition is to 
answer it. No man, in his right mind, will stay 
by his littleness, his narrowness, his small con- 
ception of things, when he shall find a friend 
who can lead him out into the infinite spaces of 
life." 

"Yes, sir," I answer; "but suppose follow- 
ing in that new life means that my enemies 
shall turn against me and my very position be 
in jeopardy?" 

"Well," would respond this stranger, not 
knowing our characteristics, "to have the truth 
in the largest way is worth more than position, 
or society, or houses, or lands, or anything else 
under the blue dome of God's heavens. Always 
accept the new truth, when it is found to be 
truth, and of course accept the eternal friend- 
ship, for eternal friendship is lasting while 
temporary friendship passes. In other words, 

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A Gamble for a Coat 

always accept the eternal rather than the 
temporal. ' ' 

Nicodemus, the great Jewish scholar and 
member of the Sanhedrin, came to Jesus by- 
night that he might have opportunity for an 
unbroken conversation with this young prophet 
from Nazareth. He was prepared to argue. 
He was prepared to agree with this virile young 
prophet, as well as disagree. He was prepared 
to caution this young man against extreme 
views, but, at the same time, reveal his own 
passion for real truth. It did not take a man 
like Nicodemus very long, however, to discover 
that he was dealing with a new type of life and 
truth. As he talked that night with Jesus, vast 
vistas of new life opened before him. Old 
truths gained new meanings. Old beliefs must 
be reshaped. If he would be true to himself, 
he must move out into larger intellectual expe- 
riences. Nicodemus went away from the con- 
versation that night to think it through. A 
year passed, possibly two years go by, but still 
Nicodemus thinks and waits and compromises. 
Oh, how many evenings he might have enjoyed 
with Jesus ! How many of those rich and rare 
conversations he might have had! What en- 
largement to his own life and his own visions, 
what enrichment of his own thought and his 
own personality, — but he waits and compro- 
mises. Quickly, Nicodemus, or it will be too 
late! 

At last, a crisis has come. The hatred of his 

[139] 



God Translated 

people has martyred the young prophet. Christ 
is dead, and the sun is setting on the day of that 
fierce crucifixion. Now, as the shadows begin 
to gather, comes Kicodemus with a hundred 
pounds of aloes and myrrh to embalm the dead 
body of him who might have been his personal 
and everlasting friend. To me, one of the sad- 
dest pictures in all the Bible is Nicodemus 
coming with his spices to embalm the dead 
body, when Nicodemus might have had a living 
and eternal friend who would have widened and 
broadened his life to the richest and rarest that 
human nature might know. 

What do you think were the feelings of Nico- 
demus that night when he went back to his cul- 
tured and lovely home f The shadows hung over 
Judea, and the Syrian stars were looking down 
in all their beauty. What were the emotions of 
Nicodemus that night when he thought of his 
losses, — of his infinite, infinite losses ? Friends, 
make no mistake. Our re-action against some 
of the old doctrines of the past carry us far 
beyond the doctrines which really are. There 
come times when we simply pass beyond, and 
you never can recall what has gone by. Nico- 
demus could now have no more than the dead 
body of Christ. He could not have even that. 
What were his feelings? A dead body instead 
of a life-long friend ! Think of it ! What hours 
of conversation he might have enjoyed! How 
Christ would have enriched his life, opening 
doors into infinite truth! Now he has a dead 

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A Gamble for a Coat 

body only, and a hundred pounds of spices. 
After the burial, he has a dead body embalmed. 
He might have had a living friend enthroned. 
Ah, Nicodemus, it was the Sanhedrin or Christ ! 
You chose the Sanhedrin and lost, — eternally 
lost. 

What must be the thoughts of so many men 
and women, when suddenly they turn to behold 
their wreck and ruin, where might have been 
strength and gladness. I have in mind a man, 
fine, strong, noble, who blindly, weakly, tracks 
his way to his own destruction. Some hour he 
will stop, will look back over the pathway, will 
sense for a moment, at least, all the unutterable 
loss which has come to him. It may be with a 
sigh : it may be with a bitter wail, he shall cry 
out, ' ' Oh, that I had taken the other road ! Oh, 
that I had lived the life that was true ! ' ' 

I think of Edgar Allan Poe, who sat in his 
room that night, debating with his own con- 
science, and realizing the wrong of the past. 
Suddenly he heard a "tapping, as of some one 
gently rapping.' ' He opens the door, and a 
bird, a raven — his own conscience — comes in to 
sit on the bust of Pallas just over his chamber 
door. Poe draws his chair up close under 
where the light falls on that strange thing he 
calls a raven, and then he begins to talk to it, — 
'tis his own soul. 

" 'Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou/ I said, 'art 

sure no craven, 
Ghastly, grim, and ancient Eaven, wandering from the nightly 

shore. 

[141] 



God Translated 

Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian 
shore ! ' 

Quoth the Raven, ' Nevermore. ' 

" 'Prophet!' cried I, 'thing of evil! — prophet still, if bird 

or devil! 
By that Heaven that bends above us, — by that God we both 

adore, — 
Tell this soul with sorrow laden, if, within the distant Aidenn, 
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name 

Leonore. ' 

Quoth the Eaven, 'Nevermore.' " 

Ah, "Whittier was right — was right — was 
right. "Of all sad words of tongue or pen, 
the saddest are these, — it might have been." 
That is hell. Dante and Milton are children 
picturing a hell, beside this one. 

Oh! when that man wakes up, as will thou- 
sands of others, in the morning, or at the noon, 
or in the night-time, to look back over the wreck 
and ruin wrought, then must come that blister- 
ing, blighting call, the only call that makes 
devils wince, — it might have been: it might 
have been, but it can be no more. 

Destiny for Dollars. 

Suppose, once more, I approached my 
stranger, saying to him, l ' Sir, one more propo- 
sition, a last one. Answer me truly. Our 
earthly life has a span of three-score years and 
ten. After that span of years, and a few more 
that may be added, we pass from this environ- 
ment, out of this physical body, into a larger 
environment of the spiritual body. So far as 
any revelations have been made to us here, the 

[ 142 ] 






A Gamble for a Coat 

conditions of that other life are controlled by 
our attitudes, and actions, and beliefs in this 
life. Now I have set before a young man two 
propositions. The one is that he shall earn 
money, build up a fortune, use that for self- 
gratification, give himself over to the physical 
and mental enjoyment of these three-score 
years and ten, making no plan for the future 
or taking no account of it. The other proposi- 
tion is that he shall make fortunes, if the power 
is resident in him, but he shall use his dollars 
to contribute to a more glorious destiny when 
this brief span of life is over. He shall live 
in this life to prepare himself, not only for the 
finest and best that this life can afford, but for 
the shaping of his eternal destiny in that life 
to which he hastens. Which, sir, shall be wis- 
dom's path for this young man to travel V 9 

I think the stranger would answer, i ' Sir, the 
very setting of your questions answers them. 
No man, in his right mind, will sacrifice his 
destiny for dollars. No one, in his right mind, 
using the brain God has given him, will make 
his own body the grave-yard of his soul and 
limit to three-score years and ten gratifications 
which God means shall endure forever and ever 
in righteous living. The only path of wisdom 
for your young man to travel is to take this life 
in which he finds himself, gain from it all the 
finest and best things that it can afford, always 
making them contribute to that higher destiny 
into which he goes. ' ' 

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God Translated 

But, oh! strange perversity of human life. 
With all its wisdom given to reveal the right 
pathway, here comes the thoughtless boy, say- 
ing to his father, i ' Father, give me the portion 
of goods that falleth to me," and lie divided 
unto him his living. Not many days after, the 
young man, gathering all his possessions to- 
gether, goes away into the far country, and 
there wastes his substance in riotous living. 

Said a man to me sometime since, "0 well, 
sir, I will take my chance on the next world.' ' 
Chance! There are no chances with God and 
the next world. A man sits on a powder keg 
lighting matches. I cry to him, "Look out! 
Be careful !" "Oh, I'll take my chance," he 
cries, and carelessly lets a lighted match fall 
into the powder keg. Fool ! There is no chance 
with a lighted match and a powder keg ! A man 
says, "I live as I please here and take my 
chance with God hereafter." Fool! There is 
no chance to be taken with God. The answer 
to your folly is your destruction. It is the 
answer of God Himself, i ' The soul that sinneth, 
it shall die." You cannot take chances with 
that eternal law. "Whatsoever a man soweth, 
that shall he also reap. ' ' There are no chances 
with God. He made the way so plain that a 
wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err 
therein. Serve God and live! Sin and die! 
There is no chance to be taken. 

Eternal life is at stake. You must accept 
Jesus Christ to gain eternal salvation. If this 

[144] 



A Gamble for a Coat 

were my opinion, you could doubt it and take 
a chance, but I disavow any responsibility for 
the opinion. It is not mine. I am no authority 
for it. I am but the mouth-piece of it. Aye, I 
quote the message itself, recorded in John 3 :16, 
"For God so loved the world that he gave his 
only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in 
him should not perish but have everlasting 
life. " There are no chances here. "Whoso- 
ever believeth on me shall not perish: whoso- 
ever refuseth me must perish.' ' There are no 
chances here. 

Yet men and women gamble their destinies 
for dollars, and throw the insults of their sin- 
burnt lives into the face of God Almighty, and 
cry for the drop of water to cool their awful 
thirsts. Yet men and women gamble their des- 
tinies for dollars and stake all upon the throw 
for mere physical garments or decoration, 
while heaven looks on in open-eyed wonder 
and earth trembles in fear, and the Saviour of 
the world is dying upon the cross. 

Come back again to the scene of the text. 
Yonder they hang on the three crosses. Jesus 
hangs in the midst. That is where we would 
look for him. When he was walking about the 
earth, he was in the midst of sorrow, and suf- 
fering, and at the wedding feast he was the 
center of its joy. He was always in the midst, 
and we would look for him there, even in death. 
But, over yonder, under the shadow of that 
great stone, shadowed from the heat, sit those 

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God Translated 

four soldiers gambling. Heaven is looking 
down and the angels are weeping. Earth is 
trembling, and already begins to draw her cur- 
tains of darkness that the face of God might 
not see the suffering of His Eternal Son. 

But They Gamble for a Coat! 

More eyes shall turn to that cross than the 
generations of men can count, and more tears 
of gratitude shall flow than the vials of God 
can contain, and yet they sit yonder by that 
stone gambling. For a coat they gamble, while 
the Son of God is dying for the sins of the 
world. 

Over yonder today, around their gaming 
tables in Brockton, are young men gambling 
away their destinies while empires are totter- 
ing, while the blood of nations cry out, while 
heathen darkness grows thicker and millions 
die in sin. 

But here stands the Christ. Calmly he looks 
down upon us. He says, "I have provided a 
way to life. Enter ye in by the narrow gate: 
for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that 
leadeth to destruction : for narrow is the gate, 
and straightened the way, that leadeth unto 
life. Everyone that heareth these words of 
mine, and doeth them shall be likened unto a 
wise man who built his house upon the rock: 
and the rain descended, and the floods came, 
and the winds blew, and beat upon that house : 

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A Gamble for a Coat 

and it fell not, for it was founded upon the 
rock." All the giant forces of the centuries 
shall never move that soul whose life is founded 
on Jesus Christ. 

' ' The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose 
He will not, he will not desert to his foes: 
That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake, 
He'll never, no never, no never forsake." 

"Everyone that heareth these words of mine, 
and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a 
foolish man, who built his house upon the sand : 
and the rain descended, and the floods came, 
and the winds blew, and smote upon that house : 
and it fell: and great was the fall thereof." 

Sit down and gamble for a coat, for dollars, 
for place, while these eternal destinies wait! 
Gamble while the hours go by, and the dark- 
ness gathers, and the day is done ! Then stand 
in the chilly gloom that falls, and cry, — 

"Late, late, so late! and dark the night and chill! 
Late, late, so late! but we can enter still. 
Too late, too late ! ye cannot enter now. 

"No light: so late! and dark and chill the night! 
O let us in, that we may find the light! 
Too late, too late ! ye cannot enter now. ' ' 

But I would not leave you there this morn- 
ing. Tense as the situation may be, here stands 
the Christ still. He reaches out his arms to 
you in this congregation, uttering the words of 
the great old Book, " Though your sins be as 
scarlet, they shall be as white as snow : though 
they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool, 

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God Translated 

for the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses 
us from all sin. ' ' There are no chances. Accept 
Jesus Christ and live. Reject Jesus Christ and 
die, for this is the eternal plan of God. Kneel 
before him. Receive his forgiveness and 
cleansing. Then rise up and walk, going your 
way to eternal life. 



[148] 



IX 

DEATH DEFEATED 



'Death is swallowed up in victory." — 1 Cor. 15:54. 



IX 

DEATH DEFEATED 

Paul, the Apostle, based his belief in the 
resurrection of Jesus Christ upon two facts, — 
first, his own sight : second, his own experience. 

He confirmed his sight by applying to all 
those who had seen or known Jesus Christ be- 
fore and after his resurrection. He discovered 
that there were about five hundred people who 
saw him both before and after his resurrection : 
there were eleven disciples, and there was him- 
self, — making a total of five hundred and twelve 
people who knew Christ before his death, knew 
of his death, and knew him after his resurrec- 
tion from the dead. Now, the sworn testimony 
of five hundred and twelve people is evidence 
enough. Paul considered the fact established. 

He confirmed his own experience by examin- 
ing the experiences of others. He was a 
changed man. His name was formerly Saul. 
That a power had come into his life and 
changed him from Saul the bigoted, the ego- 
tistic, the haughty, the persecuting, the blas- 
phemous Saul of Tarsus into Paul the right- 
eous, the daring, the triumphant preacher to 
the Gentile world, was a fact that Paul could 

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God Translated 

not gainsay. He knew the change that had 
taken place in his own life. But that was not 
enough. He must examine other lives to dis- 
cover if a similar change had taken place in 
them. So he went about the world asking here 
and there from men and women if their lives 
had been changed because of the Christ who 
had come to them. 

He looked at Peter. Peter's name had been 
changed as well as his life. Before Peter knew 
Jesus Christ he was a restless, unstable, shift- 
less sort of a man. You could put no reliance 
upon him. He was forever changing his mind. 
He had no great moral purposes. He did not 
propose to do anything in the world. He could 
not. He was simply a rough and ready fisher- 
man. But after Jesus Christ came into his life, 
he became a mental and moral giant. That old 
shiftlessness was gone. That strange fear of 
the public was banished. His became the great- 
est voice among the Apostles for preaching the 
story of the blessed Son of Grod. Peter's life 
had been even more marvelously changed than 
the life of Paul. 

Paul looked at the life of John. John was a 
quick-tempered, unrestrained, passionate youth, 
— one of those fighting fishermen always in a 
brawl, but John was changed. He went through 
the list of the disciples. They were all changed 
men. He examined the lives of hundreds, and 
he discovered that wherever the life of Jesus 
Christ had come into the lives of men and 

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Death Defeated 

women, they were changed, as he had been 
changed. So, he confirmed his own experiences. 

When Paul put the two together, his knowl- 
edge, backed up by the sworn testimony of five 
hundred and twelve people, and his experience, 
backed up by the experiences of an equal num- 
ber of people, certainly Paul had a right to ex- 
claim, ' ' I know whom I have believed : I know 
Jesus Christ.' ' 

If a man cannot base his convictions on such 
evidence as his knowledge and his experience 
corroborated by a large number of people with 
similar knowledge and experience, then there is 
no foundation for any fact in the world. All 
our knowledge is so based. That is a founda- 
tion that cannot be shaken down. There is no 
man living today who will openly, frankly, and 
without any bias whatever, take the story of the 
life of Jesus Christ as written by John, and the 
Book of the Acts of the Apostles as written by 
Luke, read how the Christ came, what he did, 
how his life changed lives in the first years of 
the Christian ministry, follow honestly down 
through the years to discover that same power 
at work changing men and women, who will not 
be convinced that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, 
came, gave his life, rose from the dead, broke 
the bars of death, and gave freedom to men. 

The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the 
dead is the most momentous fact that ever came 
into human history. His was a beautiful and 
wonderful birth. The angels wandered through 

[153] 



God Translated 

the door-way of heaven and sang out their song 
to listening worlds. But we were born and 
angels sang, for the smile on the face and the 
note in the voice of a mother is a music that 
would make all the choirs of heaven blush. 
Angel mothers sang when every one of us were 
born, and it was sweeter music than angel 
choirs ever knew. 

His life was challenging. He uttered many 
revolutionary things, and led people to do many 
wonderful deeds. We, too, must live on and 
attain if we would gain something of his moral 
grandeur. We live and must live. 

His death was terrible. The agony in Geth- 
semane and the suffering on the cross was of 
the most acute kind, for the finer the nervous 
sensibility, the more awful is the suffering. But 
millions of people live and have their Geth- 
semane and die on their own crosses. Millions 
of people have suffered as great physical agony 
as did Jesus Christ. 

Now, if that were all, — his birth, his work, 
his death, — great as it all is, it would yet be 
little. He would be but as one among the great 
multitude of human beings. We know we are 
born ; we live ; we work ; we die. Is that all ? 
Is that all Jesus did? Around this little island 
of time I wander, finding the illimitable sea 
about me, and discovering no way off. Time, 
time, eternity, eternity, illimitable spaces, il- 
limitable spaces! What is it! What is it all? 
What does it all mean? 

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Death Defeated 

The Easter season comes to answer the pro- 
foundest longings of the human heart. Easter 
answers the world's doubt and the world's 
despair. Jesus Christ was born, and lived, and 
grew, and died: but death had no power over 
him. He broke the bars of death. He came 
back to this world as he left it, which simply 
proves that what has been called death is not 
death at all. I wander around my little island 
as before, but the boats are sailing away on the 
tide, and I know they are bound for the home- 
land. You may keep me here so long as there 
are tasks for me to perform, so long as God 
desires my voice and my life. But the moment 
God speaks, you cannot keep me here, for my 
boat will come for me, and I shall go out from 
my island home of time to the great continent 
yonder, just beyond the horizon line, to be 
forever in the eternal homeland. 

Let us turn to this chapter from which our 
morning lesson has been taken to ask very 
critically the meaning of the great writer, and 
find, if we may, the deeper meaning of the 
Easter season. 

Jesus Christ Arose from the Dead. 

As we have said, Paul the Apostle had two 
great proofs, — his own sight and his own expe- 
rience, backed up by the knowledge and the ex- 
perience of others. Paul knew, and everywhere 
his voice rings with assurance. 

[155] 



God Translated 

Only one of those proofs is available for ns 
today. There is no one living who has seen 
Jesus Christ in his physical form. We do not, 
indeed, need such testimony now. "The ladder 
rung the foot has left may fall, since all things 
change save God and truth." I would not look 
a moment at a person who declared he had seen 
Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such testimony is 
absolutely worthless now. 

But we challenge the second proof. Has 
Jesus Christ still the power to change human 
life f Has he the power to enter into a man all 
sin-sick, cursed with habits that destroy, and 
change him into a clean, strong, righteous man? 
Yes, he has. There are men and women in this 
church to whom Jesus Christ has come and 
absolutely changed them. Simon, the fisherman 
who was always like the sands of the sea or the 
change of the winds, coming over into Peter, 
that mighty man who preached at Pentecost, 
never had a greater change than some of you 
men and women have had because the life of 
Jesus Christ has come into your lives. There 
is a body of testimony in this church this morn- 
ing big enough to stand as a foundation upon 
which the faith of the world could be built. 

Why! look at those disciples! Six weeks 
after Peter had so basely and blasphemously 
denied Jesus Christ — but six weeks after — he 
was one of the greatest preachers of his age. 
Everywhere he went the tread of his foot was 
dreaded. There was something strange about 

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Death Defeated 

his personality. Six weeks after the death of 
Jesus Christ those eleven disciples were walk- 
ing about the world like monarchs, and whereas 
Sanhedrin and Ecclesiastical courts had been 
brazen before, they shrink away from them now 
in all the fear of conquered evil. What changed 
them? What changed those disciples? A 
dream? A vision? A hypnotic suggestion? 
No ! They had met Jesus Christ. They were 
possessed of the Holy Ghost. They were, every 
one of them, incarnate Christs, and where be- 
fore there had been but one Christ, now he 
was being multiplied by the hundreds, by the 
thousands. 

Why, look at that change ! Peter, on the Day 
of Pentecost, is as superior to Peter in Pilate's 
courtyard, as a strong man is superior to a 
crippled child. Peter had risen with Christ 
unto Christ. It was a prodigious climb that 
carried the sleeper of Gethsemane and the 
coward in the high priest's court up to the 
thunderer at Pentecost and the winner of three 
thousand souls for his Master. It was a long 
way up from Simon, whose Galilean brogue 
betrayed him, to Peter whose eloquence brought 
glory to Galilee. 

It is a marvelous power that has awakened 
so many thousands from the lower conditions 
of life in which they found themselves, so that 
they have flung off their grave clothes and put 
on the regal splendor of Jesus Christ, and gone 
up and down the world, — converted gamblers, 

[157] 



God Translated 

converted base-ball players, converted drunk- 
ards, converted harlots, — everywhere preach- 
ing the name and fame of Jesus Christ, and 
winning men and women by the thousands to 
an acknowledgment of him. 

But Some Men Will Say, — How Are the Bead 
Raised Up, and with What Body Bo They 

Comet 

For asking such a question as that, Paul ex- 
claimed, "Thou fool!" Then he proceeds to 
tell how the dead are raised, and why a man is 
a fool for asking such a question. He takes an 
illustration from the farm. A seed has three 
separate parts, corresponding to the trinity in 
us. We are body, mind, and spirit. The seed 
is shell, or body ; kernel, or brain matter ; life, 
or spirit. In other words, the seed is body, 
brain and spirit. Plant that seed. Ere long 
a green shoot comes pushing its way up through 
the dark earth, grows into the sunlight and 
upper air, becomes a tree, puts forth its blos- 
soms of wonderful fragrance, and soon luscious 
fruit hangs from its branches. The seed you 
planted did not come up as a seed. The life, 
or spirit, in that seed pushed its way up 
through, eating up the kernel or brain part of 
the seed, and bringing all the seed with it into 
a transformed state. All the seed came up, but 
not as a seed. It came up a new life, that life 
fed by the seed itself. 

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Death Defeated 

I might take the illustration more closely 
from the history of the bean. You plant beans 
in the ground. Ere long that green shoot will 
be coming up, but, strangely enough, on the top 
of that green shoot is the shell of the bean it- 
self. I am reminded of a retired Scotch min- 
ister, who did not understand gardening. He 
planted some rows of beans in his garden. To 
his utter amazement and confusion, one morn- 
ing when he went to view his garden, he dis- 
covered that the beans themselves were all up 
in the air on the top of the green shoots. He 
instantly pulled them all up, and put them down 
in the ground again, thinking he had planted 
the beans wrong side up! You discover, — he 
didn't know beans ! The bean shoot brings the 
shell of the bean with it, and then drops it off 
as much as to say to the bean itself, — You never 
dreamed what a new life was, and that is why 
we bring you up that you may see the sunshine 
and the airs above. 

"So," says Paul, "is the resurrection of the 
dead." We are physical, mental, spiritual. 
Permit me to keep the old word Paul uses that 
we may follow exactly his reasoning. We have 
the physical body, or the clay. We have the 
mental body, or the psychic. We have the spir- 
itual body, or the pneumatic. There is, Paul 
says, a natural or psychic body, and there is a 
spiritual or pneumatic body. We know that to 
be true. We know we have our physical bodies. 
We know we have our mental bodies. It is 

[159] 



God Translated 

when we come to that last and finest grade that 
so many are found wanting in knowledge. 
They fail to understand that the greatest part 
is the spiritual or pneumatic. 

Now along comes this something we call 
" death.' ' What is it? We plant the seed in 
the ground and life brings that seed in trans- 
formed being to live above the ground. We 
plant the human body in the ground, and that 
same body does not grow up any more than does 
the same seed grow up. As the seed appears 
in the life of the tree, so our natural or psychic 
body appears in the spiritual or pneumatic. 

It is sown a psychic or natural body. It 
grows up a pneumatic or spiritual body. It is 
sown in dishonor, — that is, coarse, weighted, 
corruptible. It is raised in glory, — that is, free, 
unhampered, incorruptible. It is changed from 
the old and the coarse into the new and the fine. 
Let me illustrate. I stand by the door of one 
of those great mills at Niagara Falls. I watch 
men bring in salt, sand, and sawdust, and throw 
them into a bin placed there to receive them. 
The three are mixed and absorbed. From the 
other side of the machine, I watch men carry- 
ing away carborundum, a material used instead 
of emery for sharpening tools. Now, all that 
was put into that machine was salt, sand, and 
sawdust : all that came out of that machine was 
carborundum, — a different product entirely. 
How is it done ? A current of electricity fused 
the three separate substances into a new 

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Death Defeated 

product. The old was changed into the new. 
"So also," says Paul, "is the resurrection from 
the dead." It has been taken a natural body: 
it has arisen a transformed, glorified body. 

Death, Then, Is Defeated. 

It was an awful battle ! 

In Scott's "Ivanhoe," you recall that fearful 
storming of the Castle Torquilstone. You re- 
member how Ivanhoe, wounded and a prisoner, 
watches the battle and especially the bravery 
of the Black Knight, as Eebecca, the Jewess, 
reports it to him while she looks out on the 
fearful scene. One can see the shower of ar- 
rows, can hear the thunderous strokes of the 
battle axes, the falling of the towers, the groans 
of the wounded and dying, but one 's soul glows 
with glory at the triumph of righteous arms 
and the defeat of those base marauders. 

History is full of fearful struggles for vic- 
tory. What sieges have been endured by what 
heroic souls! Sebastopol! Port Arthur! 
Przemysl ! But, take this scene from the Bible 
where the greatest battle was fought, and the 
greatest victory won that ever shall be known 
for time or for eternity. 

Jesus Christ hung there on the cross. Surely, 
he is defeated. Surely, death is victorious. 
Note the struggle. It is not the sound of the 
guns, the roar of the artillery, the shout of 
hosts, but it is a greater battle in awful silences. 

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God Translated 

See ! Though midday, the sun begins to darken. 
A strange yellow light creeps over the earth, 
followed by a darker shade, mingled with the 
purple and the gray, and then the black, — an 
awful light in which men look into men's faces 
and shudder in terror. Look! The lightning 
zigzags down the sky. The roar of the distant 
thunder increases, and far among the moun- 
tains, giant rocks are loosened and come crash- 
ing down to the valleys below. Thunder, light- 
ning, darkness! Nature is shuddering. The 
earth trembles. Why, even the graves are torn 
open. All this is an indication of the violent 
emotions in the spiritual world. Imagination 
opens for us that strange scene. Devils had 
gloated in the defeat of Jesus Christ. They 
jeered, as those Germans jeered the other day 
while they fired their cannon balls into the 
midst of helpless women and men struggling 
in the icy waters of the North Sea. Jeering at 
them, I say, and laughing, while they sank to 
their death, but those devils were to be taught 
a lesson, as these modern devils ere long will be. 
Defeated? Nay! Upon the cross he hung. 
All the fury of the nether world and the con- 
centrated hate of evil and passion was f ocussed 
to tear him to pieces, and they jeered and 
laughed in glee, as he cried out in his agony, 
"Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani V ' Then he 
bowed his head and gave up himself, but he 
gave up himself as a mighty victor. The sol- 
diers and those who stood by saw only the dead 

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Death Defeated 

body hanging on the cross. But down from 
that cross came the triumphant Jesus, and with 
scourges a thousand times more real than the 
ropes he had taken in the temple, he drove those 
shrieking demons to their dens in the nether 
world. He seized death, howling with rage, and 
tore him into atoms and flung him helpless into 
the endless abyss, and he is falling yet, shriek- 
ing in his fall. Then came the Christ as victor, 
and death had been defeated. 

1 ' death, where is thy sting? ' ' Ask it of the 
seed, and the seed answers, — there is no sting. 
6 ' grave, where is thy victory ? ' ' Ask it of the 
seed, and the seed answers, — there is no vic- 
tory. Death and the grave to the seed have 
been the kindest of friends, allowing the seed 
to germinate and come up into its new world 
where the sun shines, and the birds fly, and the 
wind sings, and life is beautiful. So will be that 
life beyond the grave, where the birds sing, and 
the sun shines, and the sky is blue, and love 
never dies, and human tears never trickle down 
human faces. So, also, has death been 
destroyed and defeated, and life and immor- 
tality has been brought to light through the 
Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

That old power of death has been everywhere 
in the world seeking to fulfill its mission. 
Death sat enthroned in the wine cup. Great 
social and economic forces defied the death 
cries of home, and manhood, and womanhood. 
The battle of battles in this land was going 

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God Translated 

on, now succeeding, now losing. Then came 
this great war, and God saw to it that it was a 
war for infinitely more than the Germans in- 
tended it when they declared war. Eussia saw 
that if she would be successful, the wine cup 
must be destroyed, and the Czar of the Russians 
destroyed it with a stroke of his pen, though he 
took millions from his treasury. France, strug- 
gling in her death throe saw that if she would 
be victorious, the wine cup must be broken, and 
she broke it. England, with her brewers sit- 
ting in the House of Lords and defying every 
moral reform, — England, in her Gethsemane, 
sweating blood, wrinkled, haggard, is saying, — 
The wine cup must be broken ere England can 
be victorious, and the King, and Kitchener, and 
Lloyd George, and the nation dashes it on the 
rocks that surround their little island and it is 
broken. If this great war should do nothing 
more than bring the attention of the world to 
the awful infamy of the liquor traffic, every 
man who dies in the trenches, and every woman 
who weeps out her life, and every child that 
pleads in its orphan home will have paid a 
fitting ransom. 

Death sat enthroned in racial pride and 
wealth. To one land it grows more bitter. 
The contemptible iniquities inflicted on the 
black people of this nation cry out to heaven, 
and the American nation is preparing a more 
awful cataclysm than that of the Civil War, 
because of her inhuman treatment of the black 

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Death Defeated 

men struggling for their newer liberty. It was 
true in the old world, but along came this war, 
— and look! Racial pride and prejudice have 
vanished! Russian, Indian, Englishman, 
Negro, Frenchman, Canadian, Australian, 
New Zealander, Japanese, — all side by side, 
bivouacing on the same fields, fighting in the 
same trenches, charging with the same shouts, 
against a common enemy. Why, race prejudice 
has been broken from the allied nations, and 
Germany who jeered at the calling of these races 
finds herself slowly strangled by the strange 
powers that she never dreamed would awaken 
in human breasts. Death has always stood en- 
throned in human doubt, but human doubt is 
now defeated. Who doubts when the Easter 
message speaks! He but reveals the lack of 
his own thinking. 

Death was defeated. The battle was for 
eternal supremacy. When Jesus Christ on the 
cross cried, "My God, my God, why hast Thou 
forsaken me," it was as many a prayer that is 
going up today. But it was not the prayer of 
defeat : it was the challenge to victory. 

' ' Death could not keep his prey, 
Jesus, my Saviour: 
He tore the bars away, 
Jesus, my Lord." 

Death has no more dominion. He led captivity 
captive, and brought freedom to men. We are 
told of a captive soldier who suddenly got a line 
with his rifle on his three captors. Speaking 

[165] 



God Translated 

calmly, lie said, "Make a move, and you die," 
and they knew death was in their slightest 
movement. He commanded, ' ' Drop your hands 
by your side when I speak three," and their 
hands went down. Then the captive led his 
captors into captivity. That is what Jesus 
Christ did. He led captivity captive; he 
destroyed death; and he brought life and im- 
mortality to light, and gave manhood its eternal 
freedom. 



As we have said, the resurrection of Jesus 
Christ is the most momentous event of all time 
and all eternity. Others pass into death and 
disappear. Christ reappears and is alive. 
Others leave the world and leave lonely hearts 
that have here lived and loved with them. 
Christ came back to the world and to the hearts 
with whom he had lived and loved. Others, so 
far as we know, when they leave this world, 
have nothing to do longer with this world, but 
Christ has all to do with this world, and is 
dwelling in the hearts and lives of millions. 

He is here. He is in the world. Come out 
to the cemetery and sing. Come into the homes 
where sorrow has been and sing. Come, let 
your gladness be real today, for "death is 
swallowed up in victory. ' ' 

1 ' Go, hush thee in Zion the dirge of the weeper : 
Bestrew not his grave with thy cypress and rue, 
Nor with aloes and myrrh enfold Calvary's sleeper, 
For the day-star has risen ! Strike the anthem anew ! 

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Death Defeated 

1 1 He speaks, — and the morning stars gather to listen : 
He smiles, — and the flocks upon Carmel rejoice: 
Eabboni! Oh, well may human eyes glisten 
At sound of that tender, compassionate Voice ! ' ' 

"She turned herself back, supposing him to be 
the gardener, and said unto him, — If thou hast 
borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid 
him that I may take him away. He saith unto 
her, — Mary. She turned herself quickly, cry- 
ing, — Rabboni ! Eabboni ! ' ' for her Christ, and 
ours, was alive. 



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X 

THE WAITING BREAKFAST 



"Jesus saith unto them, — Come and break your fast. 1 * — 
John 21 : 12. 

(Our translators were afraid to say that in good modern 
English. It is really, — "Come to breakfast," — but in order 
to get it a little more in the biblical tone they say, — "Come 
and break your fast." It is our plain, ordinary English ex- 
pression, — come to breakfast.) 



THE WAITING BKEAKFAST 

A group of the disciples stood once more on 
the old hills in Galilee looking out over the lake 
and over the surrounding country. Two of 
them, a little detached from the group, stood 
speaking nothing ; then one turned to the other 
saying, "Well, John, at last we are back to the 
old land. The hills never looked so beautiful 
to me before. I see the old lake sparkling yon- 
der in the sunshine, though I see it through the 
mist of the tears that gather. Some way the 
horizon lines on the opposite shore of the lake, 
so blue, so dim, so far, have in them a call of 
mystery, — something like the mystical voice of 
that young Master who appeared to us one day 
on these very shores, saying, "Come ye after 
me and I will make you fishers of men.' You 
remember, John, and how we left our nets, 
our boats, our fishing, all we had been trained 
to from youth, and followed that mysterious 
voice of that wonderful stranger.' ' 

For these three years had been remarkable 
and wonderful years to these men who formerly 
were fishermen and now were going back to 
their old trade. Remarkable years, I say, they 
had been, for he had led them from their nar- 
row surroundings, their provincial life, out into 

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God Translated 

a broader and wider world. When their eyes 
were dull, he pointed out what he would have 
them see. They had beheld sickness, sorrow, 
and the burdens of their generation such as 
they never could have seen had they remained 
around their little lake to carry out their life's 
work. When they had not seen the oppression 
of the Eoman power that was crushing the very 
life from their nation, he pointed it out to them 
very clearly and awakened in them a new 
patriotism, while they sensed a new world mis- 
sion for their nation. Fine men, men of large 
vision, men of great influence, they had come in 
contact, as well as in close association, with 
him, the world's Master to whom all things 
were open. All this travel, this association, this 
mingling with people had cultured and culti- 
vated these rough young fishermen until they 
had become, not strangely, educated men. So, 
as they stand here this morning, they are dif- 
ferent men, — cultured, cultivated, broadened 
men. They look back in wonder at those three 
brief years, to the hour when he first appeared 
on the shores of Galilee and called them into 
that new life, and forward to those new and 
wonderful tasks. Are they the same men? 

John looks up at Peter, saying, " Peter, I 
have been looking over my life. I am not the 
same person, and yet I am the same. I looked 
into the mirror to see my face, but I have gone 
away to forget what kind of a presence I was. 
I have the same boyish impulses, but I am dif- 

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The Waiting Breakfast 

ferent, Peter. I do not understand it." And 
then there came back the memory of that last 
week down there at Jerusalem. They had 
staked everything on following their young 
Master. Then, they had seen cruel hands ar- 
rest him, take him, carry him away. They 
heard those foul men swear away his life with 
fearful blasphemy. They saw him nailed to the 
cross. They saw him die. They saw him put in 
the tomb. They saw the seal set. They saw 
their hopes die. Yes, but strangest of all, they 
had seen him come back from that death and 
talk with them again. He was the same when 
he spoke or performed some characteristic act, 
yet he was not the same. They never knew him 
until he spoke to them. He seemed to come in 
through closed doors. He seemed to appear 
suddenly when least expected. But he came 
and talked with them. 

What shall they do now? A whisper, "Back 
to Galilee," so back to Galilee they had gone, 
and this morning they find themselves on the 
shore of the old lake, wondering. 

Peter looks at John, "Well, John, it is no 
use. We did the right thing as we thought, but 
the old life is gone, and all our dreams have 
died. Yet, after all, there is something about 
it that stirs me to my depths. However, we 
cannot stand here doing nothing. I go a-fish- 
ing. ' ' John looks at him. * ' I will go with you. ' ' 
The others heard and answered, "We also go 
with thee." 

[173] 



God Translated 

There is life in activity when one grips the 
old things of the years gone by. Once more 
they make ready their boats and nets, and, with 
the coming of evening, they row away. They 
could not fish during the day for the waters are 
too clear. Their hands stiffen on the oars. 
They feel the lift of the sea. The breezes from 
off the hills fan and cool them. Here are the 
old fishing grounds, and out go their nets. 
They are fishermen once more. Their dreams 
have died behind them. 

' l Cast after cast, by force or guile 
All waters must be tried." 

But, "that night they took nothing." I think 
I can feel the spirit of those men run down as 
the hours go by. They have lost their cunning. 
They have lost their markings on the shore. 
They cannot find the fishing grounds. When 
the morning breaks, without a word — for men 
like those do not use extra words at such hours 
— they quietly pull in their nets, bend to the 
oars and pull for the shore. 

As they come through the mist and the land 
looms up, there is a stranger standing on the 
shore. He puts his hand to his mouth and calls, 
"Have ye aught to eat!" And they answer, 
' i No. ' ' Ah, that word " no. ' ' Sometimes when 
I have heard it, I have thought of the despair- 
ing cry of countless generations. "Wherefore 
do ye spend money for that which is not bread, 
and your labor for that which satisfieth not." 

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The Waiting Breakfast 

The generations have answered, "No — No. 
Nothing to eat. Toiled all night and taken 
nothing ! ' ' 

I watched two men come down the street this 
morning, and knew them well. There was no 
thought of the Sabbath. There was no thought 
of the church. There was no thought of God. 
I said to myself, as I saw them pass, "Forty 
years and more of their life is now gone; an- 
other forty years and they will be beyond the 
reach of time. What will have been the use of 
this life to them? No food — nothing to pay 
them for their lifetime of fishing. ,, 

But it was the Christ who stood on the shore, 
and they knew him not. "Cast the net on the 
right side of the boat, and ye shall find," he 
called. Keen-eyed stranger is he! Had he 
seen the school of fish breaking on the surface? 
Did he know? Out go the nets. A deep sag is 
felt and yet a yielding. They know the feel. It 
is a net full of fishes ! A whisper goes through 
the boat, "It is the Lord." Then Peter 
snatches his great coat and thrusts it around 
him, throwing himself into the water that he 
might more quickly get to land. The others 
hasten to pull in that great load of fish. First, 
they count their fish, — only fishermen would 
have done it. A hundred and fifty and three ! 

When their nets were all up on the sand and 
the boats made fast, then hunger asserted it- 
self. We forget to be hungry when we are 
under excitement. When the excitement dies 

[175] 



God Translated 

down, then the physical makes its demand. 
Jesus, waiting for that moment, said, "Come 
to breakfast,' ' and they looked to see a little 
fire on the shore with some fish and bread cook- 
ing. Breakfast is ready for those tired, hungry 
fishermen who had been out all night and had 
taken nothing, until the catch of the morning 
had requited them for all the night of toil. 

Men and women, you may live to be fifty, 
sixty, seventy, or eighty years of age and toil 
all your life up to that hour without success, 
but if God will enable you even then to bring 
souls to Him that shall serve in the Kingdom 
of God, it will pay you for all your life's toil, 
all your life 's work. ' ' They that are wise shall 
shine as the brightness of the firmament and 
they that turn many to righteousness as the 
stars forever and ever." 

Jesus Had Prepared the Meal. 

He had not cooked the fish they caught. 
"They see a fire of coals there and fish laid 
thereon and bread." Jesus had taken the fish 
himself. 

Somehow or other, food has never failed. 
The world has not gone hungry. The Lord God 
has been preparing His earth and granting 
food to His children in all these centuries, and 
He will go on preparing His earth and grant- 
ing food so long as His children here abide. 
"While the earth remaineth seed time and 

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The Waiting Breakfast 

harvest and cold and heat and summer and 
winter and day and night, shall not cease." 
Jesus had prepared the breakfast for them out 
of the fish which he himself caught. 

His invitation to them is an invitation to the 
hungry world. "Come to breakfast." "Ho, 
everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters. ' ' 
"The spirit and the bride say, — come, and he 
that heareth let him say, — come, and he that 
is athirst, let him come, and he that will, let 
him eat of that breakfast which has been pre- 
pared by the Lord God for all His children. 
What an invitation to a hungry world ! 

But where are the fire and the food? Their 
eyes are fog-filled, these children of earth and 
clay. They cannot see the shore or the Master 
calling. But, breakfast is ready. 

Now, everyone who has ever eaten is thereby 
authorized to invite another to that breakfast. 
Let him that heareth say, — come, and whoso- 
ever hath eaten of that breakfast which the 
Lord has prepared for his children, let him give 
the invitation to another who is hungry and 
needy. We look to the churches to extend that 
invitation, but, alas, on how many altars are 
ritual and creed and other earth foods piled 
instead of the bread of life. Oh! Churches, 
Oh! Christians, let Christ prepare the meal. 
Hands off while he lays the fish and the 
bread! Then, call aloud to a hungry world 
and cheerfully give the eternal food that 
satisfies. 

[177] 



God Translated 
They Ate with Jesus. 

How many times they had done so ! I think 
the moment they sat down, they began to recall 
such other times. They remembered that after- 
noon as the sun was setting behind the moun- 
tains, when the little lad had come and pre- 
sented his five barley cakes and two small fishes, 
and Jesus had taken the bread and the fishes, 
held them in his hands, looked up to heaven, 
blessed them, and then, breaking them, gave to 
the disciples, and they to the multitude, until 
five thousand people were satisfied. I think 
they recalled that hour in the upper room when 
he took the bread, blessed it, brake it, and said, 
"Take, eat, this is my body; this do in remem- 
brance of me." How active would memory 
be as in silence they ate, by the shore this 
morning. 

There is an old promise in the Book of Rev- 
elation which says, "Behold, I stand at the door 
and knock; if any man hear my voice and 
open the door, I will come in to him and will 
sup with him, and he with me." "I will 
come in and eat with the man, or the 
woman, who will give me an invitation. ' ' 
I have often said to you that our Lord, 
Jesus Christ, is a gentleman. He will 
not intrude in your home, he will not 
sit down at a meal at your table, he will not put 
his foot over the threshold of your door, unless 
you give him an invitation. Yet there are some 

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The Waiting Breakfast 

who go up and down the world saying, "If the 
Lord wants me, let him come and get me. If 
he wants me to be converted, let him come and 
convert me." The invitation is given to us. 
We accept or reject. God honors our per- 
sonality even though we make a fool's 
choice. 

There is a promise in the old Book that tells 
us we are to have a banquet with him in that 
other world, some day. Jesus seemed to be 
the same after his resurrection as before. The 
hint is that we are to be the same after our 
resurrection as before. We are to sit down 
with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the 
Kingdom of God, — and that means all the loved 
ones and friends, — to the great banquets that 
shall be prepared in the Kingdom of God. I 
sometimes try to picture to myself what heaven 
will be like. No sickness there! No sickness 
there! Think of it! All well! No sorrow 
there! Nobody's heart ever aches there! No 
bitter tears ever fall! No strange longings 
that call for the tears! No death there! No 
death there! No limitations there! Oh, how 
they cling to us, like ball and chain, to hold us, — 
these limitations of ours. All my life long I 
have desired that my hand might command the 
skill to carve in marble a living statue of my 
Lord, but I never can do it here. I have been 
too busy trying to do but "one thing." How 
often have I longed to sing. I have said, — ' ' Oh ! 
if I could lift my voice and interpret that which 

[179] 



God Translated 

cannot be interpreted by any speaking voice.' ' 
But I have been too busy trying to learn how 
to preach the Gospel. Whenever I have stood 
before a great painting, and my soul has 
stretched out to meet the genius of the painter, 
I have said, "Oh! that my hand had the skill, 
and my brain the training, to leave upon the 
canvas thoughts that might endure.' ' I shall 
never do it in this world. But when we get 
over into that other world, and the limitations 
are off, ah, then, what joy! Not one way only 
to tell of my love for him, but many ways. Not 
working, as here, day and night, with voice, and 
pen, and prayer, that I might in some way strike 
the wooing note that would lead men and 
women from their sins to their Saviour, but 
be able to chisel it, and sing it, and rhyme 
it, and preach it, and paint it, until my soul 
would at last express its perfect tribute to my 
Lord. 

Oh, what will heaven be like ! Did Kipling 
get a fore-gleam when he wrote, — 

"When Earth's last picture is painted and the tubes are 

twisted and dried, 
When the oldest colours have faded, and the youngest critic 

has died, 
We shall rest, and, faith, we shall need it — lie down for an 

ason or two, 
Till the Master of All Good Workmen shall put us to work 

anew ! 

"And those that were good shall be happy: they shall sit in 

a golden chair; 
They shall splash at a ten-league canvas with brushes of 

comets' hair; 

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The Waiting Breakfast 

They shall find real saints to draw from — Magdalene, Peter, 

and Paul; 
They shall work for an age at a sitting and never be tired at 

all! 

"And only the Master shall praise us, and only the Master 

shall blame; 
And no one shall work for money, and no one shall work for 

fame, 
But each for the joy of the working, and each, in his separate 

star, 
Shall draw the Thing as he sees It for the God of Things as 

They Are!" 

Sometimes I have imagined that great ban- 
queting room when all the hosts of glory were 
present. Through yon door Jesus Christ en- 
ters and that great host rises and shouts and 
cheers, and shouts again, and, then, as if by 
one impulse, they sing, — 

"All hail the power of Jesus' name, 
Let angels prostrate fall; 
Bring forth the royal diadem, 
And crown him Lord of alL 

"Crown him, ye martyrs of our God, 
Who from his altar call; 
Extol the stem of Jesse's rod, 
And crown him Lord of all. 

' ' Sinners whose love can ne 'er forget 
The wormwood and the gall, 
Go, spread your trophies at his feet, 
And crown him Lord of all. ' ' 

We shall eat with him in the Kingdom of God. 



[181] 



God Translated 
They Ate of Christ. 

In the sixth chapter of John, Jesus had said, 
(< Iam the Bread of Life. I am the living bread 
which came down out of Heaven. If any man 
eat of this bread, he shall live forever. ' ' Who- 
soever eateth of this bread shall never hunger. 
Not that they would never hunger again, but, 
that having eaten of this bread, they would 
know it as the bread that would always satisfy. 
It is much like clear, cold water. "We may drink 
of all the concoctions man has ever mixed, but 
when we are thirsty, when we are dying of 
thirst, those concoctions never satisfy. We 
turn to the cold, clear water, and that satisfies, 
and we know that it alone was made to satisfy 
man ? s thirst. He that eateth of that bread shall 
understand that he is eating of that which 
will forever satisfy. 

"I tried the broken cistern, Lord, 
But, ah, its waters failed : 
E 'en as I stooped to drink, they fled 
And mocked me as I wailed. 
Now, none but Christ can satisfy, 
None other name for me: 
There is love, and life, and lasting joy, 
Lord Jesus, found in Thee." 

Eating of the Christ made men strong. It 
makes men strong today. After Peter, and 
John, and the rest of them, had eaten of that 
strength of Jesus Christ, how strong they be- 
came. What mighty moral and intellectual 
giants they were for the pulling down of the 

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The Waiting Breakfast 

strongholds of sin and the building up of those 
temples of the living God. All down these cen- 
turies, when men have eaten of that strength of 
the eternal Christ, they have gone out to defy 
kings, mock powers, level mountains, fill up the 
valleys, and make the way of the Lord straight 
that he might reign and rule whose right it is 
to reign and rule on earth and in heaven. 
When we have eaten of that Christ, how our 
strength has grown and our delight in life's 
conflicts increased. Blessed Christ, thy 
strength give us yet more and more. 

That eating also made them wise. Why, 
Christ knew more about their business than 
they did! They had failed as fishermen. He 
told them how to succeed. They did not know 
how they were to get money for their taxes. 
He told them how. They did not understand 
how they could feed that great multitude. He 
told them how to do it. He can tell you how to 
make shoes. He can tell you how to teach 
school. He can tell you how to run your busi- 
ness successfully. He is the .greatest sermon 
builder the world has ever known. Listen to 
these words of promise, "If any of you lack 
wisdom, let him ask of God who giveth to all 
liberally and upbraideth not, and it shall be 
given him. ,, Jesus Christ is the storehouse of 
all wisdom. Oh, ye who lack, and wonder, and 
are weary, turn to him for that guidance which 
your temporal and eternal success demands. 

Our morning meditation completes the life 

[183] 



God Translated 

work of Christ as told by John the Evangelist. 
The lessons here taught are lessons eternal. 
We are almost afraid even to mention them to 
ourselves, but the lessons are here. Jesus 
Christ of the resurrection life is the same 
Christ of the earthly life. Jesus Christ of the 
resurrection life has the same interest in the 
common tasks and needs of his people. Jesus 
Christ in the resurrection life notes and cares 
for every need of his children in their common 
lives, and when we face that great word of 
promise that some day we are to be like him in 
his glorified life, then does it not follow that 
we shall be interested in the common life we 
have left behind, as he was interested in the 
common life he had left behind! 

What does it mean, this great hint, by that 
breakfast on the shore, but that ever and al- 
ways his eye is upon us and his care is over 
us, and he watches us truly. 

"Whenever I am tempted, 
Whenever clouds arise, 
When songs give place to sighing, 
When hope within me dies: 
I draw the closer to him, 
From care he sets me free : 
His eye is on the sparrow, 
And I know he cares for me. ' ' 

We gather about the table of our Lord this 
morning to eat with him while we eat of him. 
Calmly he sits with us today, — our host, and 
yet our guest. While we eat of this bread in 
emblem, may we eat spiritually of his strength. 

[184] 



Ctf«* 



* ii 



The Waiting Breakfast 

While we drink of this cup in emblem, may we 
drink of his life until there shall flow through 
our veins the life blood of the life-giving Christ. 
We shall eat with him in the Kingdom to 
come when these flesh veils are withdrawn, and 
we see eye to eye, and look into his face, and 
find his name written upon our foreheads. 



[185] 



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